


Squire

by catherineflowers



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Secretary (2002) Fusion, BDSM, Book Canon Age Gap, Canon-Typical Misogyny, Dom!Jaime, Dom/sub, F/M, Omorashi, Self-Harm, Spanking, Sub!Brienne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:07:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25763395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catherineflowers/pseuds/catherineflowers
Summary: An AU of the 2002 movie "Secretary", set in a universe where Brienne didn't join Renly and Jaime was exchanged for Ned Stark and his daughters.Written for the Jaime x Brienne Fic Exchange 2020, for Tarthiana.
Relationships: Hyle Hunt/Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 98
Kudos: 202
Collections: Jaime x Brienne Fic Exchange 2020





	1. I've Always Suffered

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tarthiana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarthiana/gifts).



> Banner made with the assistance of FaceApp!
> 
> Written for the lovely Tarthiana from her prompt for a Secretary AU. I thought it was a bit easy to do a Modern AU, so I decided to challenge myself to do it in canon times! There are four chapters and I'll post them over the next few days.
> 
> Please note that this fic follows the events of the film VERY CLOSELY, and as such, there are depictions of S&M activities and graphic self-harm. Nonetheless, it is, like the film, an erotic romantic comedy drama.
> 
> BIG thanks to everyone who helped me with reads, suggestions and edits: CaptainTarthister, jencat, MizEllieJane and Meriwyn. You're all wonderful people.

It was dark by the time House Tarth’s wheelhouse rolled through the gates of King’s Landing. Dark and raining hard.

Father, coughing into his handkerchief, let out a long, low moan. Wet weather always made him feel worse. By his side, Dorola fretted – she stroked his arm and fetched him a clean handkerchief. He squeezed her hand.

Both of them looked frightened, Brienne thought. Pale. Small. Shrunken. She had never seen Father frightened; always, he had been jovial – laughing, jesting, feasting, drinking. Always drinking. Always larger than life, a new woman on his arm every year.

Dorola, though, had lasted four years. Through Father’s sickness, through the war. Through the Sack of Tarth, through their imprisonment in their own castle and now, finally, to King’s Landing. Here they would be … what? Prisoners? Hostages? Honoured guests of the crown? Brienne didn’t know, and Father hadn’t said a thing.

The carriage rolled through the streets towards the keep. Brienne clutched her bundle against her chest. Dug her fingernails into her palm.

The city smelled awful in the rain: sewage and rotten food and decay. Tarth always smelled fresh – honeysweet meadows and sharp salt from the sea.

Brienne ached for her home. Felt lost and adrift. Who was she now? How should she even introduce herself? She had always been Brienne of Tarth – was she now just Brienne?

Father coughed hard and endlessly as the wheelhouse was ushered through the gates of the Red Keep. It trundled on through the outer yard, through a further two gates and finally drew to a stop before the drawbridge to Maegor’s Holdfast.

Brienne peered out of a window, terrified. Outside stood a retinue of Goldcloaks, silent and blank-faced, the rain drumming hard on the steel of their helms. All wore mail and leather. All had swords at their hips.

“Father –” she said.

But the door of the wheelhouse swung open before she could complete her sentence, and just as Brienne expected the Goldcloaks to invade, to pull them out, a slight man in fine clothes stepped forward, a thin smile on his thin lips. “Stand back,” he commanded the Goldcloaks. “Give our guests room to get out.”

Brienne disembarked first, noticing the man had a mockingbird embroidered on his doublet, and he looked friendly. Obsequious, almost. He almost didn’t stare at how mulish and tall she was.

“Lord Tarth,” he said with a gentle voice, offering a bow as Father stumbled down the steps of the wheelhouse on Dorola’s arm. “Lord Petyr Baelish, at your service. I bid you welcome to King’s Landing.”

“Yes?” said Father. His voice was thin, and he sounded lost. Small and lost. Dorola clutched his hand.

The smallest flicker of confusion passed across Lord Baelish’s features, but a gracious smile replaced it quick enough. “Please, follow me to your chambers, my Lord. You have had a long journey, you must be tired. And wet, of course.”

“Ch-chambers?” Father stammered.

Baelish nodded. “Of course, my Lord. We have prepared some rooms in Maegor’s Holdfast for you. I hope they will be to your liking.”

“Oh. Yes. Chambers. Of course.” Father seemed to regain some of his stature – his shoulders lifted a little, and his head went a little higher.

Brienne’s heart ached for him – clearly, he too had been worried they were headed for the infamous Black Cells.

Baelish signalled to a couple of Goldcloaks to bring the Tarths’ luggage – only a single trunk between the three of them – and led them across the drawbridge.

Maegor’s Holdfast was quiet so late at night, only a couple of night servants could be seen as Lord Baelish walked the Tarths up the stairs and through the elegant, immaculate corridors towards their chambers.

The rooms they were shown to were small and sparsely furnished, little more than servants’ quarters. By day they would be lit by only a tiny window looking out over the Blackwater. Now they had but a single candelabra.

“I hope you find these chambers … _suitable_ ,” Baelish said. There was something in his voice that Brienne misliked. The chambers, clearly, were not suitable – they did not befit a lord who was a guest of the crown in any way.

Nonetheless, Father nodded. His shoulders had sagged again, and Dorola’s eyes were huge. They were, of course, suitable for prisoners. For hostages. For lords who had lost their wealth, their lands and their birthright.

“Good,” said Baelish. He stepped aside for the two Goldcloaks who had carried their trunk from the wheelhouse. “I shall leave these two men outside your door tonight for your protection. By day you should all feel free to explore the keep. The gardens … the Sept … as much as you wish. However, I wouldn’t recommend venturing into the city itself. There are far too many citizens keen to prove their loyalty by visiting violence on traitors to the crown. Feelings are strong after the war, you understand.”

Father nodded again.

“Then I shall bid you goodnight, my Lord. I hope that you all sleep well, the Hand of the King will wish to speak with you on the morrow.”

Tywin Lannister? Brienne opened her mouth to ask what – or why. But before she could get a word out, Baelish spun on his heel and was gone in a flash of expensive velvet.

As soon as the door closed, Father sagged against Dorola – she caught him and helped him to the bed, loosening his collar and helping him to lie down. There was a flagon on the table, filled with watered wine. Brienne poured Father a glass, helped him bring it to his pale, blue-tinged lips.

“It’s not bad,” he wheezed as he sipped. “It’s not bad, it’s not too bad.”

Whether he meant his health or their chambers, Brienne could not say. She helped Dorola with the pillows, helped her to undress Father, helped her feed him some of the bread and cheese they had been left.

Father coughed, and groaned, and clutched at anyone’s hand that he could reach. He was pallid and clammy, and there were flecks of blood in his spittle again. The journey had not been good for him at all.

“Don’t worry,” Dorola said, again and again, her soft Free Cities accent clipping her vowels almost to non-existence. “The climate is good here, Sel. Very good. You will see, you will have your strength again in no time.”

Brienne nodded as she wiped the sweat from Father’s brow. Once these rains passed …

Father nodded, too. “All will be well,” he whispered. “Tywin Lannister is a hard man, but he is fair, and he knows our worth – I am the Evenstar, that title still means something to those who hold true to the gods. He will find a match for Brienne and the Tarth line will continue. Perhaps in time, we might earn our way back to Evenfall.”

Brienne looked away – Dorola did, too.

There was no Evenfall. It had been put to the torch as they left – fire and wildfire glowing green and orange in the sapphire blue waters around Tarth. Their ancestral home was nothing but smouldering ruins now. Surely Father had seen that? Surely he remembered?

“Of course we will,” Dorola indulged, a simpering smile on her face. “Tywin Lannister will help us.”

“Yes,” agreed Father. “He’ll find a good match for Brienne.”

Brienne felt as though there was no breath in her body. No strength in her limbs. She felt like she was only anger, only fury, only desperate, desperate sadness. She pushed the feeling down, forced her face to smile. For Father. For Father.

“Perhaps when we meet him,” Dorola said gently. “Brienne should wear a gown?”

Father nodded. “Of course she will.”

Of course. Of course. Dorola was not a bad woman, nor unkind, and Father loved her dearly. But she oft spoke this way, as if Brienne disliked gowns, disliked wearing them. It was not so; Brienne had gowns – Brienne had many gowns. Formal ones, informal ones, ones with petticoats and lace. Beautiful gowns that she had fallen in love with at first sight, adorned with flowers and embroidery and patterns of such exquisite beauty they made her foolish heart skip a beat to see them.

What Dorola didn’t understand was that none of the gowns would help. They couldn’t make Brienne more pleasing to the eyes of men, make her look like an actual woman. She had corsets and bodices and skirts that shaped her this way and that, made her small breasts look bigger, made her thick waist look smaller. But they had never helped with the suitors Father had found in the past. Even in the most beautiful gown in the Seven Kingdoms, no man had ever thought Brienne of Tarth pleasing to the eye.

“Of course I will,” Brienne echoed. She forced her smile even wider, though not wide enough to show her crooked teeth. “The blue, perhaps?”

“The blue,” Father agreed. “My favourite. It goes well with your eyes.”

“Of course.”

Brienne retired to her own chamber, taking only her sleeping shift, her bundle, and a single candle from the candelabra to light her way.

Her chamber was not a chamber, not at all. It had probably once been a dressing room, or a storage cupboard, or perhaps by the smell of it, a room for a hound. So small she could touch both walls with her outstretched hands. It was bare, with no fireplace, without even rushes on the stone floor. There was a palette in one corner, a straw mattress atop it. A chamber pot. A small table. And, incongruously, a looking glass.

She dripped some of the candlewax onto the tabletop, used it to stick her candle to its surface. Then she stripped to her shift by the bed, not wanting to look at herself in the mirror, but unable to stop herself, too.

Her ugliness was all but compelling, even to herself. Broad. Wide. Flat. Broken. The bulge of her leg where she sat on the bed, the thickness of her ankles, the wideness of her feet. The endless peppering of freckles all across her body, the way her nose was crooked and broken and her lip was split. Her lank hair hanging about her ugly, ugly face.

Her scars. All her scars. Brienne unwrapped her bundle.

She had no sword, of course – prisoners weren’t allowed swords, but in the time since Tarth had been captured, she’d found other ways to do this.

Sewing needles. A cloak pin. A piece of glass from a smashed window. A childhood doll whose foot she had sharpened to a point. A broken antler she had found in the forest. Brienne laid them out on her bed like glittering treasures.

Already she could feel the calm come over her. She hiked up her shift on her thighs.

Her fingers felt exciting on her skin, secret and loving and _hers_. All hers. This wasn’t something people’s mockery could take from her, it wasn’t something that Father’s illness could prevent her from doing. It was secret, and it was _hers_. It belonged only to Brienne.

She’d sliced into her leg with the broken glass before she’d even considered what she was doing. A quick slash followed by a sharp gasp of shock. She watched her skin gape open for a heartbeat before … Ohhhhh.

The sweet red rush of blood against her skin – strawberries and freckled cream.

Again. Again. Not the piece of glass again – that was only for the first cut, the quick one she did before she lost her nerve. Now she had the piece of antler, pressing it down, gouging her skin until she saw more blood, until she felt that sweet relief.

The antler was Renly – the stag she had loved and had wanted to die for. _Should_ have died for – should have taken that swordthrust through the throat instead of him. She had planned to go to war for him, _with_ him, until Father became ill.

Now Renly was dead without her, and the pain was so big … so _big_ , so overwhelming, so secret and foolish and stupid and ridiculous – how could she believe that … how could she dare to love someone so perfect and beautiful as _Renly Baratheon_? And Father so ill. And home… _gone_. And Dorola and Ser Goodwin and … this was the only way Brienne knew to cope.

After she had finished, she cleaned her wounds. Washed away the blood and rubbed a little salve on them, something that Maester Orlyn at Evenfall had given her for her cuts and scratches in the training yard. It smelled sweet and medicinal and reminded her of home. Of love. She bandaged her thigh in the way Ser Goodwin had shown her to treat battle wounds.

Then she packed it all away, rolled her bundle carefully back up and tied it with its leather cord. Precious. Important. Her weapons and her armour.

At home, she had hidden it behind a loose brick in her fireplace, but this room was so sparse! The nearest thing she had to a hiding place was to tuck it behind the tilt of the looking glass. It would easily be discovered by servants there – but did they even have servants?

She climbed into the bed. It was too small for her of course – so short her feet overhung the end and the blankets didn’t cover nearly enough. It felt churlish to complain, even to herself, though – she had thought they would be spending this night in a cell. By rights, she would have slept in tents and on bedrolls for months by now, had she been with Renly.

She blew out her candle and tried to sleep.

The next day, Brienne was woken from a fitful, smothering dream by Dorola. Father’s mistress rapped on her door and burst in without waiting for an answer. She held the candelabra aloft, though a thin dawn light could be seen at the window in Father’s chamber.

Brienne started awake. “Dorola? What-what’s amiss? Is it Father?”

“You’ve been summoned! A message from the Hand of the King.”

She held a scroll in her other hand, the seal broken. Father must be awake – Dorola could not read.

“So early?” Brienne asked, putting her feet on the freezing flagstones.

Dorola wasn’t listening. She had already returned to Father’s side, flitting about him like a nervous bird, filling him a washbasin and digging his clothes from their trunk.

He looked pale and haggard – his nightshirt hung from his bony chest, and his eyes were rimmed by dark circles. He coughed hard into a handkerchief. Struggled to catch his breath.

“Father …” Brienne breathed. She went to him.

“I am well!” he scolded her, pulling his arm away from her touch.

Dorola’s eyes met Brienne’s over the bundle of clothes she carried, frightened and wide.

“Dress _yourself_ , Brienne!” Father admonished.

Brienne nodded, mute and meek. Father was rarely in a temper such as this; he did not need to grow more stressed because of her disobedience. He coughed more when he worried, slept worse and stumbled more.

She went to the trunk and found her blue gown.

Brienne and Father were taken to the Hand’s Solar a little after the city bells called the Dawn Watch. The keep was quiet, still, and the air was chilled and clammy – a mist hung about the walls, which started Father’s cough again. Dark clouds threatened more rain.

Father leaned against Brienne for support, wracked and shuddering. Brienne took off her shawl to wrap about his shoulders, but he refused it. He was the Evenstar – he did not need to be coddled by a woman’s shawl.

In contrast to the rest of the keep, the Tower of the Hand was awake and in full swing. Tywin Lannister was clearly an early riser, and required everyone else to be, as well.

Brienne helped Father slowly up the long, winding staircase, holding both his hands and leading him as one would a small child taking his first steps. They needed to stop for him to catch his breath several times.

Not one of the Lannister servants that passed them stopped to see if Father was all right. Not one of them so much as glanced their way. There was an air of urgency about them all, as if Lord Tywin had allotted his servants tasks, but not quite enough time to complete them.

They were shown into the solar by an immaculately-dressed boy with neatly trimmed brown hair. He gaped up at the hugeness of Brienne but made no comment as he opened the doors so that they might enter.

“My Lord,” the boy announced. “L-Lord Selwyn Tarth, if it please you?”

Tywin Lannister sat behind a desk that was larger than the chamber he had given Brienne, his back straight and a quill in his hand. He did not look up from what he was writing.

A long moment passed, and then another. The boy looked from Lord Tywin to Father with nervous eyes. He cleared his throat.

“My – my Lord? This is Lord S-Selwyn T—”

“Thank you, Podrick,” Lord Tywin interrupted. “You are dismissed.”

“Yes, my Lord.” The boy bowed and left the chamber, closing the doors behind himself.

Tywin Lannister continued to write.

Father started coughing again. He tried to cover it in his handkerchief, tried to suppress it, but was unsuccessful. The cough built and built until it wracked him, had him bent double, clutching at Brienne.

She looked about to see if there was any water or wine she might beg a cup of, and instead met the ice-green eyes of Tywin Lannister.

“Is he infectious?” he barked.

Father could only wheeze in reply.

“He is not, my Lord,” Brienne said on Father’s behalf. “It is … the damp.”

Tywin Lannister stood up. Both Brienne and her father stood a head taller than he, but somehow he still dwarfed them both. The man’s presence was a near-palpable thing.

“Who are _you_?” he demanded of Brienne.

“Brienne … of Tarth, my Lord. I am Lord Selwyn’s daughter.”

“You’re the daughter?” He looked her up and down, very much emphasising the _up_.

Brienne drew her shawl tight around her shoulders, trying to hide her lack of décolletage, trying to remember what Father had said last night about Tywin Lannister finding her a match.

“I had heard you were a spoiled, over-indulged thing who had been allowed to run wild and learn the art of the sword as if you were a man. I can see by the look of you that such unnatural practices have warped your very body.”

“I –” Brienne flinched. By her side, Father hung his head. That hurt Brienne far more than Lord Tywin’s words ever could; Father had always been so proud of her prowess with the sword.

“A pity,” Lord Tywin continued. “A woman of your breeding with such a title to inherit should have been a good match for … someone. Now I would doubt very much you are capable of bearing a living child.”

“My Lord, I bleed every moon without fail!” Brienne protested.

“I had planned to send you to my daughter as a lady’s maid, too,” Lord Tywin continued as if she had not spoken, pouring himself a glass of red wine. He made no offer to either Father or Brienne. “But … it would be an insult. Cersei is Queen, she cannot be expected to have such a freakish creature in her sight.”

By Brienne’s side, Father withered further.

“No, it will not do,” Lord Tywin said, all but slamming his glass onto his desk. “No. No – you will be reporting to my son, instead.”

“The Imp?” Father wheezed.

A deadly, murderous look crossed Lord Tywin’s face. “My _son_ ,” he repeated. “Ser _Jaime_ Lannister. She will report to him as a squire.”

“A squire?” Father gasped. It was, of course, meant as a grave insult – a daughter given the duties of a squire was akin to her being appointed a Court Fool. Somehow, this had quickened Father’s blood, given him the strength to stand upright, find a modicum of courage. “Brienne is no squire!”

“Look at her, man! You can dress a swine up in silk and lace all you want, but do you truly think it fit to serve tea to the _Queen_?”

“N-no,” Father stammered. “You misunderstand, my Lord … a squire? Brienne is near twenty years old has trained in combat from the age of nine! Squires are green boys! She beats anointed knights in the yards at Evenfall. She –”

“She’s a woman!” Lord Tywin scoffed. Father purpled.

Brienne placed a hand on Father’s arm. “It’s all right.” She turned to Lord Tywin, her chin high.

She was meant to be ashamed, she knew. Meant to shrink away and feel the sting of Tywin Lannister’s insults in her very bones. A freakish creature. A swine in silk. A warped body. A _squire_.

But Tywin Lannister could not hurt Brienne of Tarth. She hurt herself more than anyone else could ever dream of hurting her.

“My Lord,” she said, meeting his gaze. “I would be honoured to squire for Ser Jaime.”

A flash of surprise lit Lord Tywin’s eyes in a brief green blaze of interest. Brienne got the impression he was a man who was rarely surprised. He looked at her just a moment too long for propriety.

“Good. Then it’s settled,” he nodded. He turned on his heel and waved at them as if they were servants he was dismissing.

Father dissolved into another bout of coughing as soon they were shown from the room by Podrick. He coughed all the way downstairs, and all the way back to Maegor’s Holdfast. Once they arrived back at their chambers, he all but collapsed into Dorola’s arms.

His mistress flew around, loosening his collar, fetching him water, fanning him with her hands.

“What happened?” she asked Brienne. Her eyes were wide and frightened.

“I –”

“He – he gave … B-Brienne a-a _position_ with his son,” Father managed around coughs.

“A position? You mean a job?” Dorola wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or not. She looked from Father to Brienne and back again. “No – no match?”

Brienne shook her head.

“He w-will,” Father managed. “I know m-men like Tywin Lannister. He has – has someone in m-mind. This … it’s just a test.”

He winked at Brienne, pulling his dry lips into a wide grin.

Brienne tried to return his smile.

“You should g-go,” Father urged. His breath came in little gasps. “Find Ser Jaime. Sh-show willing.”

“Now?” Brienne asked. She looked down at the blue gown she wore. Not really what squires wore.

Father nodded, coughing until he couldn’t breathe into a handkerchief. Trying to hide the blood in his hand. “Show that K-Kingslayer what you can _do_.”

His eyes were sunken and rather yellow, Brienne thought. He needed more to drink, he needed some fresh air.

“Go!” he implored her.

She forced herself to smile, too. “I need to … dress.”

He nodded before burying his face in his handkerchief.

Brienne went to her room, pulling at the laces on her bodice as she went, closing her door behind her.

Undressed, she pulled her linen breeches back on, followed by a fresh linen tunic. She toyed with a velvet doublet, but it drew too much attention to the breasts she didn’t have, so she pulled it off and left it on the bed.

As much as it hurt to admit it, the looking glass opposite her bed showed her someone she recognised better than the woman in the gown. She buckled her swordbelt about her waist even though she had no sword to put in it.

“Ser Jaime,” she said, looking at herself in the mirror. She frowned and then deepened her voice a little. “Ser Jaime Lannister. I have come to you because your father believes I would make an _excellent_ squire.”

She stood up a little more, squaring her shoulders and moving her braid, so it hung down her back. Shifted her stance, so her legs were more apart.

“I have heard … _many_ things about you, Ser, and I am excited to have the opportunity to meet you. To train with you.”

She donned her cloak and pulled up the hood, hearing rain splattering on the window in Father’s room. She looked at herself once more and folded her arms behind her back, within the cloak. “I will not disappoint you.”

Yes – that was what she would say. That would show the Kingslayer she was keen to learn from him, for all his dishonourable past. She looked good. Strong. Willing.

As she made her way across the yard towards the White Sword Tower, it rained hard, hard enough to soak her cloak and her hair beneath.

Two guards, dressed in Lannister livery, flanked the door. She was taller than both of them.

“Can I help you … milady?” one asked as Brienne approached.

“I was told to report to Ser Jaime Lannister.”

“By who?” said the other, looking somewhat sceptical.

“By his father.”

“Oh. Right you are. Ser Jaime’s not here, though.”

“So where might I find him?”

“I believe he’s in the yard.”

“Oh … where’s the –”

“Round the back. Through the passage and past the stables.”

Brienne didn’t look back – she hurried through the rain. As she made her way past the stables, a boy ran past her. He was not young, he was perhaps six-and-ten, but he cradled his face in his hand, his lower lip fat and split and bleeding. He was crying.

“What happened?” Brienne asked, but he looked at her with big wet eyes and didn’t answer. In a moment, he was gone.

She gaped after the boy, the rain soaking into her tunic now. Turned to continue.

As the passage widened, Brienne heard the sounds of combat – the clash of steel on steel, the wet slap of footwork in puddles and the sounds of grunting. Here was the yard – a fenced-off space beside the keep’s outer wall. Flanked on one side by a covered pavilion.

Four boys, more or less of an age with the one who had run past her, practised swordplay in the beating rain. Basic moves: a drill of step, strike, parry, lunge. Facing each other.

Then she saw him.

Ser Jaime Lannister was to the side, under the pavilion. Soaked to the skin with his long, beautiful golden curls tied back. He tipped his head back to loose them, shake the water from them in a long, slow arc that had Brienne’s jaw drop.

Brienne had never before laid eyes on the Kingslayer, but she had heard he was beautiful. _Beautiful_ didn’t do this man justice – his looks were almost a physical force.

He wore a white shirt, unlaced to the waist – it was plastered to his skin so hard that he may as well have been topless. She could see every muscle. Both nipples. Every hair on his chest. All the way down to his breeches.

He finished shaking the water from his curls and stood up to sheathe his sword in a single, fluid motion that was possibly the most artful thing Brienne had ever seen. There was blood on the golden pommel, no doubt from the hapless squire Brienne had seen running from the yard.

Then, she realised Jaime Lannister was looking at her.

His green eyes narrowed. Squinted at her.

“Are you a _woman_?” Then he threw back his head and laughed.

Brienne stammered, felt her face get hot. All the words that she had practised in her looking glass went clean out of her head. She went over to him, her hands trembling beneath her cloak. Closer, he was even more perfect. As beautiful as a statue, almost, but far more _alive_. “I’m Brienne. Brienne … of Tarth. I – you – your father –”

“My father?” Ser Jaime asked. He took a step backwards as she approached, looking up at her as if alarmed by the height of her. He was not a small man himself, and yet Brienne stood half a head taller than him. His eyes wandered over her lumpy muscular legs in her breeches, the thickness of her neck emerging from her tunic. No doubt the sight of her made him sick to his stomach. He couldn’t seem to stop _staring_. “Speak up!” he snapped. “What of my father?”

“He - he sent me to you, my Lord.”

“To what end? My poor horse died in battle against the Starks, does my father intend for you to be his replacement?”

A sudden flash of herself, saddled and bridled with a bit between her teeth came into Brienne’s mind. An image of Jaime Lannister astride her back. Offering her a carrot.

A cold droplet of rain chose that moment to drip between her breasts, making her shudder. “I’m – I’m to be your squire, my Lord.”

“What!?” Ser Jaime laughed again.

Brienne felt her face get even hotter. “Your squire, Ser.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

He turned his back, walked back towards the yard.

“Ser!” she called after him. “I can fight. I have trained since – since I was a girl. Your father –”

“My father was jesting with you, you fool!” He stepped back into the rain, shaking his head.

“He was _not_ , my Lord! In fact, he was very insistent –”

“Then he is jesting with _me_.”

“He didn’t want to send me to your sister.”

Ser Jaime stopped walking. Turned back around. For a moment, there was something on his face resembling pity.

“I can fight,” she said again. “I have trained since I was a girl.”

He hissed a breath between his teeth and glanced to where there was a training sword propped up against a nearby column. He picked it up. Threw it at her. Brienne fumbled it thanks to her wet hands, and it dropped to the floor with a clang. Ser Jaime grinned. “Fight, then.”

Brienne took off her cloak, holding his eyes. Dropped it to the mud. Bent down to pick up the sword. Got into stance.

The squires had stopped drilling to watch the scene before them – they moved away from the centre of the yard, all of them wide-eyed.

Ser Jaime prowled around her for a moment, watching how she shifted as he did. Watching her footwork, her arm placement. Watching what parts of him she was watching.

“You move well,” he said at last. “For a great beast of a woman.”

His squires laughed.

Ser Jaime picked up a second training sword. She saw his hand flex about the hilt, saw something tense and excitable about his muscles. He was going to fight her!

Then the tension went out of his shoulders, and he turned to the biggest of his squires. “Clarreth Butterwell,” he called. Held out the training sword to him. “This woman claims she can fight. Fight her.”

“Me, Ser?” the boy asked. He looked embarrassed, to say the least.

The other squires laughed.

“What’s the matter?” asked Ser Jaime sharply. “Does her size concern you?”

“No, my Lord,” said the squire. “Of course not.” He was a lad of around four-and-ten, squat and heavy-set, but he handled the sword with surprising grace, twirling it in his hand as he approached her and got into stance.

The others were still laughing at him. He looked uncomfortable and furious both.

Ser Jaime stood back, leaning against one of the pavilion’s columns with one arm outstretched. He was smiling, his eyes amused, but he was watching her intensely, too.

Squire Clarreth stepped towards Brienne, bringing his sword around in an overhead arc. He was faster than he looked, but not _so_ fast. It was a testing swing, to see if she could catch it—the kind of thing one might offer the very newest of recruits.

Brienne caught it. Twisted her wrist to deflect the power of the swing back into Clarreth’s arm, using his weight against him. He stumbled back. Glanced at Ser Jaime.

“Go on,” the Kingslayer said impatiently, as if coaxing a small child.

Clarreth circled a bit, chewing on his bottom lip. He made a sudden lunge, which again, Brienne caught easily. Then his attacks came relentlessly, furiously, as if he were suddenly aware he was fighting a woman. Brienne checked and parried them, every one. She made no moves of her own, but waited for his, every time. Wore him down until he was sweating and panting. Until there was a tremor of fatigue in his sword hand.

_Watch and wait, girl. Watch and wait._

Ser Goodwin had taught her that – that a man would always spend himself as quickly as he could to try to vanquish her. The ridicule of other men was more important to them than almost anything.

This was no man – Clarreth Butterwell was little more than a boy, and even more susceptible to the scorn of his peers. She had known she could take him from the first moment he had swung at her. Of course she could – Brienne had beaten anointed knights in the training grounds of Evenfall.

This time, when he moved to attack her, Brienne unleashed an attack of her own, using her height to her advantage to press the squire onto his back foot. Rained a series of overhead slashes onto him that made him stumble, again and again until his right foot stumbled, and slid from under him. Then he was on his arse in the mud, the blunt tip of her sword at his throat, and Jaime Lannister was applauding her. Laughing.

She looked down at him as he approached. “I can fight,” she said again.

“So I see,” he grinned. He walked past her. Kept walking. Brienne gaped at him, her sword still at Clarreth Butterwell’s throat.

The squire shoved it aside angrily and got to his feet. Brushed the mud from his breeches, almost purple with fury.

Jaime Lannister looked back over his shoulder at Brienne, the rain dripping from the chiselled end of his chin. “Are you coming?” he called.

She scrambled to pick up her muddy cloak, bundling it together with the training sword and only realising she still held it when she caught up to him.

He strode ahead, too fast for her to pause and put it down, so she kept it in her arms.

Ser Jaime was silent all the way to the White Sword Tower, all the way inside, as well. Brienne trudged after him, dripping and slipping on the immaculate tiles. She followed him to the top of the tower.

He pushed open the doors of the Lord Commander’s chambers, and strode inside. Brienne followed him.

The chambers were in something of a disarray – there were packing boxes everywhere filled with straw. Servants were in the process of removing sets of white armour from the walls. Swords, too. White shields. Putting them into the boxes. Others hung new tapestries in their places, rich bright red-and-gold depictions of lions.

A thick, heavy book sat atop one of the crates. Brienne recognised it at once – she had read about it since she was a child. It was embossed gold-on-white, an image of a three-pointed crown: the White Book, the Book of Brothers.

She went to it, wanting to touch it, open it and read it, but feeling too big, too clumsy and far too wet to dare.

“Here,” Ser Jaime was beside her, holding a towel out to her. He looked at the book, and then back to her, his eyes unfathomable. “Pour me some wine?”

Brienne took the towel. Went to the nearby table where there were some glasses and two carafes. She poured a glass of red and took it over to Ser Jaime where he was bent over by the hearth, throwing a log on the fire. Brienne drew closer, grateful to be near the warmth. Looked around her at everything that was going on.

Ser Jaime saw her looking and shrugged. “Things are changing,” he said. “Thanks to the war.”

Brienne averted her eyes. Tarth had taken the opposing side – backed Renly’s claim. She was supposed to feel shame about that. Regret.

“I was chained to a post in a muddy pen for near three moons, until my father negotiated to exchange me for Ned Stark and his daughters. It’s a different city, upon my return.”

He took a drink of his wine. Looked into his glass.

“Perhaps you’ve heard?” he continued. “We are no longer the Kingsguard. The … _King_ has decided our order requires modernisation.” He gestured at the tapestry being hung on the Eastern wall. “We are the Lionguard now. Lannisters, protectors of the realm.”

Brienne had not heard that this was happening. She was shocked to her core – the Kingsguard was an institution thousands of years old. Unchanged since the time of Aegon the Conqueror. Was the boy-king Joffrey truly so arrogant?

Ser Jaime must have noticed the shock on her face. He smirked at it, even as he sipped from his glass.

“Golden armour,” he said. “Red Cloaks. A great deal more _cheerful_ , wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes, my Lord,” Brienne managed.

“And … conveniently for my father, members are now permitted to wed and sire children. Inherit lands and titles, too. Unfortunate for my poor brother, of course …”

Brienne knew not what to say. She made a poor show of towelling off her wet tunic, knowing it would take more than a towel to make her look presentable. The garment was so wet it was transparent. He watched her with an expression that was both confused and amused.

“So … you _can_ fight,” he said after a moment.

Brienne nodded.

“Too well for a squire.”

“My Lord …”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty next moon.”

“Too old to be a squire, too.”

“My Lord, your father bade me –”

“Squiring is not all fighting.”

“I know this.”

“It’s about serving with honour, as well.”

“Yes.”

“ _Serving_. Me. Fetching my food, pouring my wine, laying out my clothes. Sharpening my sword. It can be hard work, particularly for the highborn. Let alone a highborn wench.”

“No more than I do for my father,” she told him.

Ser Jaime snorted. “Aren’t you in the city because your father’s a traitor? Didn’t Tarth side with Renly Baratheon?”

Brienne took a step back. “I—”

Ser Jaime shook his head. “I think you misunderstand why you are here, Lady Brienne. My father does not give you this task to honour you. He means me to humiliate you. Your father, too.”

She lifted her chin a little more. “I am not humiliated. Being a squire is an honourable position.”

“Not for a woman!”

“Why?”

“ _Why_?!”

“Yes. Why?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it again and shook his head with an amused grin. He didn’t seem to have an answer. He didn’t stop looking at her, though. Smiled that knife of a smile at her until she shrank away, almost squirming under his scrutiny.

Suddenly, his gaze broke, and he looked behind her, towards the doors.

Brienne turned to see a page there, the boy Podrick she had met outside Lord Tywin’s solar. He had a scroll in his hand.

“I’m not here,” Ser Jaime said.

Brienne screwed up her brow.

He sighed and took hold of her by her arms. Turned her around to face Podrick and pushed her in the boy's direction. “I’m not here.”

Oh! He meant her to deal with whatever Lord Tywin had sent him. Deal with it – as a squire would.

Ser Jaime took hold of her arm again just as she took a step. Stepped close behind her. “And I like white wine, not red.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope that you enjoyed the first chapter! Will post more soon.
> 
> Big thanks to the people who read through this and offered suggestions and comments. Can't name you all yet, but will edit this once the anon shroud comes off!


	2. I'm Not So Scared of Suffering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne gets down to the business of being Jaime's squire.

The bathwater was warm, and Brienne sank into it up to her chin.

They had borrowed the tub from the servants next door; Brienne had dragged the thing to their chambers for Father and Dorola and when they were done, had taken a turn herself.

Her room was so small the tub did not fit – she couldn’t get it more than halfway through the door that connected her room from Father’s. There was no chance of any privacy.

But Father was asleep, and Dorola had gone to find where she might wash some clothes. As Brienne had suspected, they had been given no servants of their own, only a couple of women who brought them meals and didn’t speak.

The bath felt good, though – the first chance she’d had to relax at all. The water was lukewarm, and the tub so small that she had to hang the lower half of both her legs over the edge, but it felt good. _She_ felt good.

She smiled to herself as she soaped her toes. Tomorrow would be her first full day as Jaime Lannister’s squire. A plethora of mixed emotions surrounded the man himself, and of course, the job was an insult. But she would get to _fight_.

The smile grew wide on her face at the thought, her hands gripping the sides of the bathtub. “Who am I?” she asked the empty room. Enjoying the feeling of the words in her mouth. “I’m Brienne of Tarth. I’m _Jaime Lannister’s squire_.”

She held her nose and sank beneath the water.

In the morning, when she reported to what had once been the White Sword Tower, but had been renamed _Lionspire_ , Ser Jaime seemed distracted. He was dressed – soft black leather breeches and a crimson silk shirt – but his swordbelt was absent, and his long curls were loose about his shoulders.

“What is it _now_?” he barked as she entered, after relieving Clarreth Butterwell. Ser Jaime looked up, confused for a moment as to who she was. “Oh. It’s _you_.”

There were no servants in the room, even though the place was still filled with packing boxes and much Kingsguard armour remained on the walls. Brienne stood still and waited for instructions.

Ser Jaime was in the process of upending everything, peering under books and parchments and furniture. He tutted and sighed at everything he lifted.

“Have you … have you lost something, my Lord?” Brienne ventured after a few moments.

He didn’t answer. Continued to empty one of the drawers onto his desk, tipping the contents out on the polished wooden surface.

She took a step towards him. “Would – would you like me to help? Perhaps –”

“Don’t move!” he yelled at her. “The last thing I need is your great hooves stepping on it.”

Brienne froze. Stood stock still with her hands by her side, as motionless as if she were standing guard.

Ser Jaime looked up at her – blinked in surprise.

Brienne said nought. Continued to stare straight ahead.

He bit his lower lip. Pulled it slowly between his perfect teeth. “Fetch me some wine,” he said, even though it was only a little after dawn.

She went to the carafes – the red was full, but the white was near-empty. She picked it up and turned back to him as he upended another drawer, this time on the floor. “I – I’ll need to fetch more,” she said.

He waved her away with his hand. Not saying anything. Not looking up. Still rummaging.

Brienne hurried away with the carafe. Down the stairs and out of the tower, through the yard and up the Serpentine Steps, making her way through the keep to the kitchens.

The kitchens were busy, hot and noisy and filled with sweating servants who didn’t give Brienne so much as a glance. She had to stop one as he carried a platter of pretty little cakes from one surface to another.

“What?” he snapped at her.

Brienne took a step back. She was not used to being spoken to that way by servants. She held up the carafe. “Where do I refill this?” she asked. “I’m Ser Jaime’s squire.”

“You’re ’is _squire_?” the man laughed as he put his cakes down. “How did _that_ ‘appen?”

Brienne spluttered. “Actually, Lord Tywin appointed me to the position!”

The man laughed again. “All right, beanstalk, calm down.”

She sighed. “Where do I get more wine?”

He was already walking off. Giving her a withering look over his shoulder as he did. “Try the wine cellar?”

The wine cellar. Of course the wine cellar! “Where’s the –”

He’d disappeared into the throng. Brienne sighed, letting a decidedly unladylike oath slip from her mouth at him. He was a busy man, she supposed. Busy with such pretty little cakes. So pretty, delicate folds of pastry, perfect squares of sponge topped with sugar stags and lions both.

Before she’d had time to reason with herself, she’d snatched the platter from the table and was making her way from the kitchens with it. Perhaps having something sweet to eat would distract Ser Jaime from whatever it was he had lost. Perhaps it would make him smile.

Beanstalk indeed.

She stopped a washerwoman to ask where the wine cellar was, and found out she had walked the breadth of the keep for nothing. The wine cellar was all but back where she’d started, beneath the Maidenvault.

One there, she filled Ser Jaime’s carafe with a sweet Arbor Gold and made the trek back up the tower.

Ser Jaime was still searching for whatever he’d lost, this time holding the naked flame of a candle beneath a bookcase, dangerously close to his loose hair. She took the carafe to the table and poured him a glass of wine. Brought it to his desk, along with the cakes.

“I brought you these,” she said. Ser Jaime didn’t respond. “From – from the kitchens.” She put the platter down on his desk, gently pushing aside some of the things he’d tipped out of his drawers.

He pulled himself up from the floor. Blew the candle out.

“I’ve lost a hairpin,” he said. Still looking around him as he told Brienne. He picked up a “Not _just_ a hairpin. A gold one, shaped like a lion. A gift from my sister.”

“Oh?” His sister. Brienne had, of course, heard the rumours surrounding Ser Jaime and his sister. The rumours were, after all, what had started the war that House Tarth had lost.

“I wore it yesterday, at dinner,” Ser Jaime said, without saying anything more about his sister. “I definitely had it when I came back here. I might have slept in it. I did a little work at the desk. I had some wine. I went to bed. I think it was still in my hair when I woke up, but I don’t know. I noticed I didn’t have it after breakfast.”

He picked up the wine and downed half the glass in a single gulp.

“It’s not here. It’s not anywhere.”

Ser Jaime took a second sip of the Arbor Gold. This time, his eyes slid to Brienne’s over the rim of his goblet. He sighed.

“It might have fallen into my plate while I was eating this morning. Could you –”

“Go through the scraps and see if I can find it?”

Ser Jaime froze. Put his wine glass down and coughed. He licked his lips.

“Yes,” he said after a moment.

“Of course, my Lord.” Brienne smiled, even though she knew her smiles were not pleasant to look at.

The kitchen scraps from the Lionspire had been emptied that morning – the cook told Brienne that it all got dumped in a cart along with the scraps from every other kitchen in the keep. But she was in luck! The cart was still out by the training yard, awaiting a horse to pull it away.

Brienne found the heavy wooden cart against the wall by the stables. It was huge, and the smell was quite intense, but she needed to get it done before it was all hauled away, so she held her breath and scrambled up the side. Stopped on the edge of the stinking, fly-covered mess of it all. She was forced to pause for a moment, breathing hard to avoid losing her own breakfast.

Above her, at the western window of the tower, she could see a shadow at the window. Ser Jaime – watching to make sure she actually went through the cart, no doubt.

Brienne pulled off her boots – they were her only pair and she did not want to have them ruined beyond her ability to clean them. She rolled up her breeches to her thighs, too. At the end of the cart, probably to help with loading and unloading, hung a spade. Brienne grabbed it, held it out in front of her as she clambered into the scraps.

Oh, it was _disgusting_. Festering meat, mouldy vegetables, stale bread, hard cheese, gravy and pudding and maggots and filth. It all squished between Brienne’s toes and around her legs as she waded through the cart. She crept gingerly through, mindful of the fact she could not feel the cart’s floor, careful not to trip and fall.

There was just so much! Brienne despaired – thinking she didn’t have much of a chance to find a small thing like a hairpin. But the Lionspire’s kitchen had been emptied last. Surely it couldn’t be too deep?

She picked up a spadeful of scraps, pulled it towards her, and slowly tipped the spade back and forth to see if the pin was amidst the contents. Tipped it carefully back out into the cart. Turned to get a second spadeful.

Brienne was uncertain how long it took, but she was hot, sweating, and dizzy from the smell when finally she found Ser Jaime’s hairpin. She was scraping along the outer edge of the cart by this time, and felt something metallic crunch against the spade as she did so.

She scooped a load from where she had felt it, and when it came up, there it was, a golden lion. The emerald eyes glittered despite being caked in grease.

When she climbed out of the cart, hairpin in hand, Ser Jaime was no longer at the window.

Attracting horrified stares from all who passed, Brienne fetched a bucket of water from the nearby well and used it to clean her hands, her feet and of course, Ser Jaime’s hairpin. There was also a splatter of something in her hair; she’d dug in a little too enthusiastically, and the resultant splash had caught her in the face.

The water from the well was freezing, but Brienne washed her hair out anyway, rebraiding it wet behind her head and hoping she was at least somewhat presentable.

When she went back upstairs, Ser Jaime was exercising.

He was on the rug in front of the fire, his knees bent and his arms outstretched. Pulling himself into a sitting position and then relaxing prone again, repeatedly. He did not look up when Brienne came in.

She stood beside him for a moment, her braid dripping icy water down her back, the hairpin in her outstretched hand. Ser Jaime said nothing. Did not even acknowledge her presence.

“I – I found it, my Lord.”

Still, he ignored her. Sat up, lay down. Flexing the muscles of his stomach. Letting out little pants of breath. Again. Again. Brienne waited. Fidgeted.

“Oh …” he said eventually. “That. Put it in my bedchamber, would you? In the box by my bedside?”

She nodded, mute. Took the hairpin into Ser Jaime’s bedchamber.

His bedchamber …

Save her father’s, Brienne had never been in a man’s bedchamber before.

The bed was unmade, the sheets rumpled. Clothes were everywhere – on the bed, on the chair, on the floor: silk shirts, breeches in fine linen and soft leather. A red leather jacket, dropped to the floor. No doubt he had torn this room apart looking for the missing hairpin, too.

Ser Jaime had a dressing table, the likes of which Brienne had never seen outside a woman’s chamber. It was beautifully carved and polished, topped by a large, ornate looking glass. The surface was scattered with jewellery – rings, cloak pins, hairpins, a pendant on a long chain. Bottles of sweet-smelling hair oil and expensive fragrances from Essos.

Brienne took it all in as she tiptoed across the floor towards his bed. His sheets were red, his pillows too, lions embroidered on them in an elegant gold thread. She could imagine Ser Jaime stretched out there, curls spread across the pillows, his long limbs artfully arranged.

Beautiful people probably slept beautifully, too. She doubted Ser Jaime had ever snored or drooled on a pillow in his life.

She saw the box on his bedside table, moved a bottle of oil and a couple of crumpled handkerchiefs to get to it. It was a pretty little trinket box – as she pulled up the lid, it played a gentle version of the Lannister House song.

“Oh!” she gasped, unable to prevent herself.

Inside the box, along with other gems and keepsakes, were another three hairpins, identical to the one Brienne had just found in the scraps cart.

She put the fourth into the box and shut the lid.

When she left the room, Ser Jaime had finished his exercising and was squinting at some parchment on his desk, his mouth moving as he read. Brienne stood by his desk and waited.

“This place is a mess,” he said, admonishing her as if it were her who had tipped drawers out everywhere looking for the hairpin.

“Y-yes?”

He looked up from his parchment. “Yes? _Tidy it_.”

“Of course, my Lord.”

She dropped to her hands and knees and started picking things up from the floor. Putting them back into the drawers Ser Jaime had emptied, trying to make some semblance of order.

When he had finished reading his parchment, Ser Jaime crumpled it into a ball and threw it onto the floor.

“This is horseshit,” he told Brienne. “Put it in the fire.”

She picked it up and went to throw it into the flames. Froze. There, blackened and burning, were the little cakes she had brought Ser Jaime from the kitchens.

Brienne was relieved at the end of the day by the youngest of Ser Jaime’s squires, twelve-year-old Elden Marbrand, who was the son of one of House Lannister’s bannermen. She thanked the boy, tried to say goodbye to Ser Jaime, but was ignored.

She walked back to the Tarths’ chambers in Maegor’s still damp and rather smelly from her trip into the scraps cart, hoping against hope that she might be able to borrow the bathtub again.

Father and Dorola were not alone, however.

Lord Baelish, who had greeted them on their first night in King’s Landing, was in attendance, dressed in a dashing grey doublet and an elegant velvet cloak. He smiled at Brienne and bowed his head as she entered.

“Lady Brienne,” he nodded. “It is good to see you again.”

She dipped in a curtsy. “Likewise, my Lord.”

It was then Brienne noticed that Lord Baelish wasn’t alone. There was a Goldcloak with him, a plain-faced young man with a broken nose and a scar down his left cheek.

Father was on his feet, a glass of watered wine in his hand. Dorola stood back as was proper for a mistress, though Brienne could tell she was anxious to be at Father’s side. Father looked pale and somewhat sweaty about the temples.

“Brienne,” Father said, wearing a strained smile. “Lord Baelish has brought someone to meet you.”

To meet _her_? Brienne turned to the Goldcloak and curtseyed again, confused.

Lord Baelish smiled. “This is Ser Hyle Hunt, Lady Brienne.”

“It is nice to meet you, Ser.”

Ser Hyle looked up at her with the usual shocked expression that men had on first beholding the true horror that was Brienne of Tarth. He was not a large man – he stood a full head shorter than she, and Brienne had found that was often a factor in a man’s disdain for her. She waited for the insults. The mockery.

None came.

“I am delighted to meet you too, my lady,” he said with a sweeping bow. Took hold of her hand and kissed her knuckles.

“Ser Hyle is late to my service,” Lord Baelish says. “But an excellent addition. He has been appointed River Gate Captain of the City Watch and also serves as the captain of my personal guard.”

Brienne had the feeling she was supposed to be impressed. “Very – very good.”

“Indeed,” Father agreed.

“Perhaps the two of you would like to get to know one another better?” Baelish suggested. “Perhaps take a walk sometime. Chaperoned, if you wish.”

“I would like that very much,” Ser Hyle said.

Brienne, tongue-tied, nodded.

“Excellent!” Baelish beamed. “I knew you would get along! Well, I shall leave you all to your supper. Thank you very much for the hospitality, Lord Tarth.”

“Most welcome,” Father wheezed. He dissolved into a bout of coughing.

Lord Baelish and Ser Hyle took their leave, and Dorola rushed to get Father back to the bed. He was coughing, but he was smiling, too. Patting the back of Brienne’s hand as she loosened his collar.

“I knew … I knew L-Lord Tywin had someone in mind,” he said between bouts. “I knew he understood the importance of the Evenstar.”

Oh. Brienne had not realised, not truly. “Ser Hyle is to be matched with me? As – as a husband?”

“Early days yet,” Father smiled. “But he seemed nice, did he not?”

He had not seemed anything – Brienne had barely spoken two words to him. Nonetheless, she nodded. She was a dutiful daughter, and she did not want Father to fret.

“Handsome, too,” Dorola said. “A man in armour is always _so_ dashing.”

He had not looked handsome to Brienne, either. He certainly wasn’t Renly. But she nodded again, trying to bring a smile to her lips. She should be excited about this, she knew. A match would help them. Buy them freedom, perhaps a way back to Tarth someday.

“I must wash,” she said once she was certain Father was settled. “My duties today have left me in something of a state. I –”

But neither Father nor Dorola was listening. Dorola was fussing about arranging the pillows behind Father’s head, and Father, as always, was coughing.

Brienne went into her bedchamber, barred the door behind her and took out her bundle.

The next day, the weather was somewhat improved, and Father’s cough was better, too. Ser Jaime took Brienne and his other squires out into the yard, made them line up to drill together, that same basic pattern of step, strike, parry, lunge.

Step. Strike. Parry. Lunge. Again. Again. Again.

Again until they were sweating, until Brienne’s arms ached with doing the same movements, again and again.

This was nothing like her training with Ser Goodwin. Not once had she done drills for hours at a time. Not once had Ser Goodwin sat on his arse at the edge of the yard, drawing in the dirt with the tip of his sword while she trained. Not only was the drill far beneath her level of skill, but Brienne suspected it may be beneath the other squires, too.

It was the same the next day, and the next. Hours of drilling followed by a very brief period of sparring where Brienne had to hold all her skills back so as not to humiliate her opponent. Ser Jaime sitting on the sidelines disinterested. Gazing up at Maegor’s. Looking up any time anyone crossed the drawbridge.

“Ser Jaime?” she asked the next day as they began the drill again for the hundredth time.

Ser Jaime looked up from where he was sitting. Said nothing.

Brienne fidgeted under his gaze. “Do you … might we … possibly do a little more today?”

“More?” he asked.

“More. Drilling is fine, of course, but … I’d like the chance to stretch my legs a little.”

He stood up. Slowly.

“Oh, you think drilling is beneath you, do you?”

“Of course not. I –”

“The Wench of Tarth thinks she’s ready for more.”

“Well –”

“You’re _not_.”

“But I’ve –”

“Come on, then. _Squire_. Show me.”

He got to his feet, his eyes a blaze of wildfire. He drew his sword.

She brought hers up, thinking he would attack, but instead he twisted it around, offering her the hilt. The ornate, golden, lion-headed hilt. He took her training sword from her hand. Thrust his own sword at her. She backed away.

“What’s the matter? Is the wench not ready for live steel?”

“I’m – I’m not allowed that. No arms.”

“Oh yes – you’re a traitor to the crown, aren’t you?” He turned his sword at his hip again. “Training sword it is, then.”

He threw it back at her. Raised his own and came at her in a fury.

 _Fuck_ he was fast. Brienne barely got her training sword up in time to block his first swing. He was strong, too, the blow almost knocked her sword from her hands.

Again and again he swung at her, high, low, overhead. Slashes and swings and stabs all perfectly executed, his beautiful sword singing in his hand.

 _Watch and wait, girl, watch and wait_ …

Ser Goodwin’s voice was always in her mind as she fought, and usually it was so clear, but Ser Jaime Lannister was like no opponent Brienne had ever fought before. He was a louche, lazy, bored man most of the time, but with a sword in his hands …

He was always beautiful, but now he was far more than beautiful. He was as something celestial – his hair flying, his skin gleaming, his green eyes flashing and furious. Receiving his swordplay felt like being kissed by a god.

Brienne was quite lightheaded. Her own sword felt loose and limp in her hand, her limbs soft as butter. He forced her back through the yard with swing after swing, step after step. Brienne moved like she was dreaming, part of her wanting to fall at his feet and let his sword strike her, take his blows one after the other after the other.

He came at her harder, and harder still, and she realised she was still defending herself. That he was possibly the greatest swordsman in the land, yet he hadn’t even got a swing past her. Her. A wench. Her, a squire.

She pushed back, then. Stepped at Ser Jaime, using her superior height as an advantage to put him on his back foot. She swung at him, pushed back his answering swing. Forced him into a parry in a position that was awkward for him.

There was something new in his eyes now, something new and wild and excited.

“Not half bad,” he acknowledged. “For a wench.”

He dove at her – lunging lower than she had anticipated, and the point of his sword scraped past her parry. It bit into her upper thigh, restrained enough not to cut too deep, but enough to slice a hole in the leg of her breeches.

That threw her off, and she overstepped on her next swing, her leg splaying a little more than she had intended it to.

Ser Jaime, being Ser Jaime Lannister, took advantage. She was sprawled in the dirt in three swings of his sword, her head bouncing off the ground and her tongue bitten bloody by her own teeth.

The other squires, of course, erupted into laughter. The sound – _always the sound of laughter always always always –_ made Brienne groan.

She opened her eyes to see Ser Jaime standing above her. She expected his sword at her throat, but it wasn’t. It hung limp from his right hand, almost … forgotten?

He wasn’t looking at her face, his eyes were much further down.

Oh.

Where her breeches were split, they hung open exposing the great ugly muscle of her right thigh, the hair on her leg … and the rows of neat, perfectly-aligned scars where she had cut into her own skin, again and again.

He looked at her.

She looked at him. Grabbed for the two halves of her split breeches and pulled them closed to cover herself. Staggered to her feet.

His eyes were huge. She couldn’t meet them.

“Go home,” he said. His voice quivered. “Squire. Get yourself dressed and come back tomorrow. We’ve got lots more drills to do.”

Brienne fled. She ran all the way from the yard to Maegor’s, holding her breeches together. All the way across the drawbridge, through the gatehouse, through the halls and stairways and corridors until she reached her chamber. Shut herself in her room.

The next day, the squires did not visit the yard. Brienne attended to Ser Jaime in his chambers, though he barely spoke to her. Barely looked at her. He kept her posted outside his door most of the day, on watch, on guard, even though she wasn’t permitted a weapon of any sort. Even though there were two actual guards downstairs and a tower full of knights.

The day after that was much the same—wine for Ser Jaime. Fetching his meals. Then outside the door for hours on end. Shifting from one foot to the other, feeling one leg go numb after another.

Then, after Ser Jaime had been served his midday meal, he had a visitor.

The Queen burst through the doors of the Lionspire in a cacophony of capricious demands. Brienne heard her voice at once, echoing and shrill up the stairwell. She knew who it was without being told – the inflexion of her voice was near the same as Ser Jaime’s.

She had the same golden curls, too, preened and arranged in an elaborate style atop her head, fixed with a lion-headed pin that was twin to the one Brienne had fished out of the scraps cart.

The Queen and a group of silken-skirted handmaids rushed up the stairs to the Lord Commander’s chambers, still berating the guards below.

“I am the Qu—”

Queen Cersei stopped dead at the top of the stairs—catching sight of Brienne on guard. For a moment, she just gaped. Open-mouthed and wide-eyed at the sight of the woman before her.

The tittering started among her handmaids, a little swell of poorly-suppressed laughter. Slowly, the shock on Queen Cersei’s face turned to amusement.

“ _What_ are you?” she asked.

Brienne felt her cheeks get hot. “I am Brienne of Tarth, Your Grace. I am Ser Jaime’s squire.”

“His - his _squire_?!” Another myriad of expressions crossed the Queen’s beautiful face. “Truly?”

“Truly.” She didn’t know, Brienne realised. Neither Ser Jaime nor Lord Tywin had mentioned her.

“Well, aren’t you going to announce my arrival? Or are you freakishly stupid as well as freakishly huge?”

“I – yes. Of course, Your Grace.”

Brienne turned away from the giggling group to open the doors to the Lord Commander’s chamber. Walked in and declared “Ser Jaime, Her Grace Queen Cersei to –”

Ser Jaime wasn’t there.

His midday meal was on his desk, his venison pie cut but as yet uneaten. Cultery askew, steam rising from the plate.

“Oh,” said Brienne. “Let me –”

She went through the passage into Ser Jaime’s bedchamber. It was empty; she peered into the privy.

“Ser Jaime?” she called.

He was nowhere.

She went to the window. Stared out, wondering if he’d somehow managed to get past her.

A hiss, from behind her. Faint but unmistakable.

“Ser Jaime?”

“Here!” he whispered. It was then she saw him. He was under his bed, cowering like a small child.

Brienne gasped. Ser Jaime pulled a face.

“I’m not here!”

“What?”

“Tell her I’m not here!”

“Wha – well, where are you?”

“I don’t know! Tell her you don’t know.”

“How can I –”

But something had caught Brienne’s attention. Through the window, far in the distance, she could see a familiar figure. Father.

Alone, no Dorola anywhere in sight, wandering about the keep. He meandered this way and that, all but bumping into people as he passed them. What was he doing?

“Go!” Ser Jaime insisted from under the bed. “Go, or she’ll know!” He flapped his hands frantically at Brienne.

Reluctantly, Brienne tore her eyes from Father’s figure. Surely Dorola wasn’t far away, surely she knew he wasn’t in their chambers?

Brienne went back out to where Cersei waited, an imperious fury tightening the Queen’s mask of a face. She glanced out of the windows, trying to see if she could see Father again, but this part of the Lionspire only overlooked the training yard.

“Well?” Ser Jaime’s sister demanded.

“He’s – he’s not here, Your Grace,” Brienne blurted.

“Not here?” Cersei’s eyes went to Jaime’s steaming plate.

Brienne looked at her boots. “No. Your Grace.”

“Is that so?”

“It is, Your Grace.”

The Queen did not answer. She prowled the room, back and forth.

“Would you like to leave a message for him, perhaps?”

“A message? A _message_? You think I would trust _you_ with a private message from me to my brother?”

“Your Grace, of course I would never –”

Cersei laughed. “Very well. I’ve got a message for him.”

She picked up the carafe of red wine from the table and took it to the door. Brienne watched her with a tremulous fascination – the Queen was quite the force of nature.

Cersei gave a sweet smile and tipped the entire carafe into Ser Jaime’s boots. Left it upended in the ankle of the right one.

“I think that will suffice,” she said, and departed with her retinue and without another word.

Brienne dashed back into Ser Jaime’s bedchamber, back to the window. She looked frantically around, but Father was nowhere to be seen.

“Has she gone?” hissed Ser Jaime from under the bed.

“What? Oh – yes. Yes, my Lord.”

“Thank the gods!” he exclaimed, pulling himself out of his hiding place. Dusting his fine clothes down and re-primping his curls in the mirror.

Brienne peered desperately out of the window. Father was nowhere – nowhere at all. If he’d wandered out of the keep’s main gate, or …

“There’s no need to linger,” Ser Jaime chided.

“Wh-what?”

“My sister has gone now, you can resume your duties, such as they are.”

She looked at him blankly.

“Go and guard the door!” he all but yelled.

Brienne jumped. Fled the room before her emotions betrayed her.

Out in the hallway, by herself in the sparse, stony gloom of the Lionspire stairwell, she could not contain it. Father … _Father_.

Father alone in the city, wandering … lost. Without Dorola, without Brienne. Terrified and confused and sickly and weak, the only man who had ever loved her, the only man who had so much as smiled at her and meant it.

Father needed her … he needed her, and she was here, guarding a door that didn’t need to be guarded, with no weapon to guard it with. Playing games with the Lannister twins – the fucking _Lannisters_!

Brienne sank to her knees, unable to stand upright a moment longer. Just not having the strength. Full-to-bursting with the need to run from this godsawful place and never stop running.

It was no good – she needed her bundle, needed the sweet slash of the glass, the sting of the cloak pin, the bite and gouge of the antler and her doll’s foot.

She needed _something._

A candelabra sat on the windowsill, gaudy and gilded as the rest of the Lannisters’ additions to the tower. It didn’t look sharp, but some of the curled metal was quite pointed. Perhaps it would suffice. But then she realised that it was lit.

Caring little for anything else, Brienne undid her breeches and pulled them down, sitting on the top step of the staircase with them about her knees as if she were sitting on the privy.

She took the topmost candle, held it over the ugly, manly muscle of her thigh and tipped it, just a little..

The little well of molten wax that had pooled in the top of the candle dripped onto her skin, making her hiss with pain. Sigh with relief. She tipped a little more out, her other hand clutching at the bannisters in her pain.

Again … a little tip. A little drip. Brienne gritted her teeth and –

The doors opened. Right behind her, the doors to the Lord Commander’s chamber. Suddenly there was Ser Jaime, talking about something, saying something that he cut off abruptly when he saw the sight that was before him.

Brienne’s smallclothes. Her vast, freckled thighs. Her scars. The hardening wax. The angry red burns she was inflicting on herself.

Brienne blew the candle out. Set it on the floor. Stood up and pulled her breeches up. Retied them. Straightened her clothes and neatened her hair.

Ser Jaime was gone. Closed the door and gone.

Brienne took a shuddering breath and got back to her duty.

By the time she returned to her chambers, Father was there once more, brought home by none other than Gate Captain Ser Hyle Hunt. Father had been found wandering the streets of the city, sickly and confused as Brienne had feared.

Ser Hyle had taken him to the maester, thinking maybe he’d suffered a blow to the head. No one was certain. No one was sure.

Father was asleep now, given some milk of the poppy and a little dreamwine to help. Dorola was beside herself, weeping and wailing about how she had never needed to lock the door before when she went to wash their clothes, that Father had been confused, but he had never left their chamber before.

Brienne could not bear it, could not bear to hear it, could not bear to think of all that might have happened, so when Ser Hyle suggested they might perhaps go for that walk somewhere, she agreed.

She dressed for him first, in a simple, gown made from a soft, claret-coloured velvet, with quartered sleeves and a delicate lace neckline. She brushed out her hair and put a little scent behind each ear. Ser Hyle smiled to see her, bowed like a gentleman, and took her arm.

He did most of the talking as they took a little walk around the keep, explaining how he had come into the service of Lord Baelish. It turned out that she and he had Renly in common; Ser Hyle had been a soldier in the service of Lord Randyll Tarly, a Stormlands bannerman who had declared for Renly about the same time that Tarth had.

Brienne could not help but feel a little resentful at his tale – here was she unable to touch a sword, and Ser Hyle had been promoted to Gate Captain and Captain of Lord Baelish’s personal guard. There was no disgrace for him. No dishonour.

But he was an amiable enough fellow, and he seemed interested when she spoke about how she had planned to join Renly at Highgarden but had been unable to because of Father’s illness. He looked sceptical at her claim that she could fight as well as any knight, but politeness prevented him from expressing outright disdain.

He looked at her with pity when she talked about being Ser Jaime’s squire, though. She wondered if he would permit her to train with the Kingslayer were they to wed.

The two of them ambled about the Godswood for a while and then through the gardens surrounding the throne room. Although they did not have the chaperone Lord Baelish had promised, Ser Hyle ensured they were always within sight of others, and he stayed a respectful distance from her.

Dusk was upon them soon enough, and Ser Hyle walked her back to Maegor’s Holdfast before presenting her with a rose he had plucked from the gardens. The thing stung her at first sight – the last rose she had been given had marked a cruel end to a betrothal.

But Ser Hyle was smiling, and his eyes looked soft and somewhat friendly. She took the rose from him and smiled back. Agreed to another walk together soon.

He, emboldened by her assent, leaned up to peck a kiss to her cheek. She blushed furiously. Stammered a little. Bade him goodnight.

She turned away to walk across the drawbridge into Maegor’s, and her eyes fell upon a knight across the yard, at the stables, about to climb onto his beautiful white horse.

Ser Jaime. He was frozen, staring at her.

He leapt on his horse when he realised she saw him. Rode away, his golden hair and his crimson cloak streaming behind him as he went. Brienne tightened her grip around the stem of the rose until the thorns dug into her palm.

The next day, they trained in the yard again, and Ser Jaime was in a foul mood.

Usually, he was bored and sarcastic, lounging on the sidelines or poking fun at the squires, but today, he strutted between them as they drilled, poking them with his swordpoint and yelling at them for any missteps.

He seemed particularly focused on the turn of Brienne’s heel as she went into her parrying stance, calling it “inelegant” and “indolent”, even though she could see no way where it was wrong. He made her do it, again and again, while the other squires watched, looking up at her with a scowl on his face as she grew more frustrated and flustered by the second.

“You look disgusting,” he told her as she took a drink of water in the pavilion after he had finally let her go.

“I’m – I’m sorry?”

“You’re my squire. Everyone knows you’re my squire. So when you walk around looking as you do, it makes _me_ look disgusting, too.”

She looked down at herself, at her linen breeches and sweaty tunic. “Oh … I’m sorry.”

“Your hair is everywhere, you constantly have to push it out of your eyes. It looks like the straw that gets mucked out of the stables every morning.”

Her hand went to her hair, feeling how much had come loose from her braid while she was drilling.

“You should cut it off if you can’t look after it properly.”

She thought in shame about his dressing table, the myriad of hairpins he owned and all that sweet-smelling oil he used to keep his curls so perfect. She doubted any of those things would work for _her_.

“And when you fight – you grimace all the time, and you grunt like a sow. It’s distracting.”

“I … grunt?”

“And what you do with your tongue! Always hanging out of your mouth when you’re concentrating. Why do you do that?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know I grunted.”

“Well … you do.”

He left the pavilion without another word, walking back toward the Lionspire. Brienne watched him leave.

She hurried back to her chambers, where Father was awake, eating a little kidney broth. Dorola sat beside him, dabbing at the corners of his mouth with a handkerchief. Sewing the hole Ser Jaime had cut in Brienne’s breeches.

“Are you well, Father?” Brienne asked gently.

“Not too bad,” Dorola answered for him. “Hungry enough.”

Father looked up at Brienne with nothing but confusion in his eyes. Like she was a stranger to him.

“F-father?”

“Ella …” he whispered in reply. Her mother’s name. “Anari?” That was his last-but-one mistress.

“No, Father. Tis me, Brienne.”

“Of course it is,” he said softly. “Of course.”

He went back to his stew.

“Is he all right?” Brienne asked Dorola.

“Just tired,” Father’s mistress replied.

“He seems confused. Moreso. He’s never not recognised me before. He –”

“He recognised you!” Dorola snapped.

“He called me by my mother's name. And then –”

“He’s tired! Have some respect for your father!”

“I have respect. Of course I do.”

“Your father is … a great Lord. Of course he’s not confused – you should not be speaking of him this way.”

Father started coughing then, grasping for his handkerchief. Coughed and coughed like he wouldn’t ever stop, until his lips were blue and his teeth were stained with blood. Brienne fetched him some wine, but Dorola batted her away and screamed at her to go to her own room.

Brienne went, her throat closed, and her eyes full of tears. She was already in her chamber with the door barred behind her before she realised she had picked up Dorola’s shears. Utterly without thought – they sat in her hand, cold and dull and heavy. 

She looked at herself in the mirror. Brienne of Tarth. Huge. Blotchy. Ugly. Dirty.

Ser Jaime was right; her hair was a mess. Spiky and dirty like two-day-old stable straw. Poking out six different ways from her braid.

She pulled her braid. Pulled it hard enough to hurt.

The next thing she knew, she’d cut it off.

Gone. Right there from the nape of her neck, sliced clean through with Dorola’s shears. Dropped it to the floor like the dead thing it was. Gone. Gone.

Brienne laughed. She looked like a boy – an ugly boy true, but boys were never as ugly as girls, so it mattered not. She snipped some off the top of her hair next. The front. The sides. Cut it around her ears, and close to the back of her neck.

She wet her head in her washbowl, brushed her remaining back. Cut a little more. A little more.

_You should cut it off if you can’t look after it properly._

“Thank you, my Lord,” Brienne said to her reflection. “Thank you, Ser. I want to be the best squire I can possibly be. For you.”

She laughed again. What did it matter? Ser Hyle didn’t want her for her beauty. Father didn’t recognise her anyway.

Dorola, though, gasped when she saw her. Flew to her side and grasped her hand.

“What have you done? What have you _done_?”

“I – I cut my hair.”

“Brienne! Why?”

Father was asleep. Flat on his back with his mouth open.

Brienne shrugged. “So I can be a better squire.”

“It’s my fault for speaking so harshly to you.”

“No! Dorola …”

“I … I am sorry. I am tired and … a little frightened. Your father is so precious to me.”

“I know.” Brienne nodded. Dorola squeezed her hand. Looked again at her hair.

“It looks _terrible._ What did you cut it with?”

Brienne held up Dorola’s sewing shears. Dorola gasped again.

“Mine! Oh your father will … he would …” She trailed off, looking at Father’s sleeping form with sadness in her eyes. So much sadness. She took the shears from Brienne. “Let me neaten it up for you. I would cut my brothers’ hair when they were small. I can do a better job than that.”

So Brienne sat on the floor, as a child might, with Dorola sat behind her on the bed, snipping away at what was left of her hair.

By the time she went to bed, she looked much less uneven, sporting a tousled mop that grazed her cheeks at the front but was cropped close at the nape of her neck.

She looked better, she thought as she admired herself in her looking glass. Strong. New. Ser Jaime’s squire.

Indeed, Ser Jaime himself did a double-take as she came into the yard the next day, his mouth dropping open as she walked past him in a pair of Father’s smart black leather breeches.

He made no comment on her appearance, but there was no drilling that day, only sparring, which Brienne much preferred. This time, she wasn’t paired with Clarreth Butterwell or the slightly rangier Arvin Redwyne – this time, Ser Jaime himself sparred with her.

This time he didn’t criticise her or put all his efforts into humiliating her. He worked with her, showing her his own versions of swordstrokes she knew, showing her how to adapt them to take opponents by surprise. He sparred with gusto, grinning in pleasure whenever she took him by surprise.

She learned more that afternoon than she had in the two years since the crown had occupied Tarth.

“Come upstairs with me?” he asked her as they towelled off their sweat in the pavilion afterwards. Not an order. Asked with one of _those_ smiles.

“Up-upstairs?”

He nodded, but didn’t elaborate, so she followed him. Across the yard and through the passage, into the Lionspire and up the stairs. Running her fingers through her cropped hair as she did.

He didn’t go into his chambers, though. He went to the Round Room, which had formerly been the common area for the knights of the Kingsguard. The once-whitewashed walls had been repainted in a vivid crimson, with elaborate golden curtains draped at every window.

It looked a far cry from the sombre, austere chamber it had once been, Brienne thought. Instead of a room intended for quiet contemplation of noble deeds, it was now a lounge for entertaining – something more akin to what Brienne imagined a brothel looked like.

Ser Jaime flopped onto one of the chaises. Threw his curls over one shoulder and leaned back into the cushions. He patted the seat beside himself, inviting Brienne to sit.

Brienne sat.

He smiled, leaning close to her, so close she could smell the fragrance he wore on his skin. She was certain he could smell the sweat on hers.

“Is that knight courting you?” he asked.

Brienne laughed.

“The knight who gave you a rose?”

She nodded. “Oh … yes. Yes, I suppose he is.”

“What’s his name, this knight who gives flowers to my squire?”

“Ser Hyle Hunt.”

“Hunt,” Ser Jaime repeated, in a tone that made the name sound quite pejorative. “Has he taken your maidenhead, too?”

Brienne laughed again – surely he jested? But he was looking at her still, waiting for an answer. “No!”

“No?”

“No, my Lord!” She wondered briefly if he intended to tell Lord Tywin what she answered, but … this didn’t feel like that sort of enquiry.

Ser Jaime smiled still. “You don’t know many people in this city, do you, Brienne?”

“I don’t. Just … my father and his … Dorola. Ser Hyle, of course. Lord Baelish. Your – Lord Tywin, a little.”

“Me.”

“You? Yes … of course you, my Lord.”

“Good. This city … it’s a pit of snakes, Brienne. So, so many snakes. You truly never know who to trust – there are people here for whom deception comes as naturally as breathing.”

“Oh.” _Like Lannisters?_ she wanted to ask. But he looked sad too, she thought. Sad and a little lost.

“That sort of thing doesn’t come naturally to us as warriors. Things are simpler for us. More honest.”

“They are, my Lord.”

“So I want you to feel as though you can be honest with me. Always. You can always trust me.”

He looked so ridiculously earnest that Brienne almost laughed again. She swallowed the impulse and nodded instead. “Thank you.”

He smiled at her for a long moment, his bright green eyes holding hers intensely. “So what were you doing with the candle wax on the stairwell?”

Brienne gasped. Moved away from him on the chaise, her first instinct to get up and run.

Ser Jaime leaned into her. Closer. Closer. Not letting her escape. “Brienne …”

She put her hands on her thighs, as if she could cover up the scars beneath her breeches. “I don’t … I can’t …”

“You _can_ ,” he told her.

She sat, frozen, hands clinging to her own thighs.

“Why do you hurt yourself, Brienne?”

She looked back at him, still shaking. Feeling naked. Raw. “I – I don’t know,” she said eventually.

“Is it because the world is full of snakes? Ruled by them, in fact. Ruled by things and people that we can’t fight fairly, that we can’t take a sword to, that we can’t make right? Because no matter what we do, the world is a vile, unjust place and all that … _injustice_ burns a hole through you that no one can see but you?”

Brienne took a slow, shuddering breath. “That’s … quite accurate.”

“But … when you cut yourself … at least there’s something real there. Something you can _see_ and _touch_ and look after. Something you can deal with, practically.”

He had her transfixed – his eyes looked different to the way she had ever seen them. Right now he was not that sarcastic, over-privileged narcissist. He was not the Kingslayer, not at all. She nodded, slowly.

He nodded, too. Bit his lip. “Am I your knight, Brienne?” he asked. “Are you my squire?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’m going to give you an order, squire. Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“You will never, _ever_ , hurt yourself again. Do you understand? Have I made my orders perfectly clear? You’ve no need for that now, it’s in the past.”

Brienne stared at him. Stared at his eyes, at his mouth.

He was a knight; she was his squire. It was that simple. “Yes,” she said—little more than a whisper.

“Never again,” he whispered back.

“Never.”

He smiled. Brienne smiled, too.

“Now … it’s time for you to leave. So I have another order. I don’t want you to go straight back to your chambers after your duties with me are finished. You’re not your father’s nursemaid or his maester. You’re not his mistress. You are the heir to Tarth – the future Evenstar. And you’re probably the finest swordswoman in the Seven Kingdoms.”

Brienne could barely breathe.

“You need to be strong for that role,” Ser Jaime continued. “It’s a heavy one, and it will weigh on you for the rest of your life, particularly in exile. Your people will depend on you, they will look up to you and be inspired by you. It’s important to take time to look after yourself.”

Brienne nodded, silent, silently holding her tears.

“So take a walk. Enjoy the gardens, enjoy the sun and the flowers and the trees. Swing a sword in the yard, visit a brothel, enjoy the pleasures of your flesh. Enjoy things that make _you_ happy. Because you need relief, for _you_. Because you will never be doing _that_ again. Will you?”

Brienne shook her head. “No, my Lord.”

Ser Jaime smiled. “Good.” He reached out and took her hand. Squeezed it. Somehow, that squeeze felt more intimate than any touch had ever felt before in her life. It was like Ser Jaime knew her, really _knew_ her, in a way no one had ever known Brienne of Tarth.

So when she left, Brienne did not hurry back to Maegor’s Holdfast. She did not fill her head with worry about Father coughing or being confused, or spilling his food down his chest when he ate. She took a slow walk to the stables, spent some time with the horses. Walked around the Godswood, listening to the sound of the wind in the trees.

Brienne looked at the roses, smelled how rich and fresh and alive they were, the bright, vibrant colours. The smell of roses was a wonderful thing – she wanted it back, she didn’t want it to be taken from her by Ronnet Connington. He did not deserve that of her.

Ser Jaime had given that back.

She walked home thinking of him. Smiling. In giving this to her, he had given something of himself, too, she thought. Perhaps unwittingly, but he _had_.

When she got home, she went into her room, pulled her bundle out from behind the looking glass and took it to the communal privy next to the baths underground. She held it for a moment, thinking of Ser Jaime. Then she let it go, let it fall into the hole, into the darkness, into the privy pit below.

The next day, she did not think once about her shard of broken glass, her cloak pin or her antler. She did, however, make a mistake in the yard.

“Your heel is wrong _again_!” Ser Jaime screamed as she went through the same drill they did every day. “Are you such an ungainly beast that the move is beyond you?!”

“No, I –”

“Well, it certainly seems to be.”

“I’m sorry –”

“Don’t apologise to me! What goes on inside that bovine head of yours? It’s a basic move!”

She turned away from him, not wanting him to see the redness of her face, the tears in her eyes.

He stalked away, headed for the pavilion. Then, suddenly, he turned back.

“Drill!” he yelled at his squires.

The five of them got into stance. Step. Stroke. Parry. Lunge. Ser Jaime walked back to them. Step. Stroke. Parry. Lunge.

“Not you,” he said to Brienne. His voice was low, and deadly. “You come upstairs.”

He turned away from the squires, left them drilling. Walked away, toward the Lionspire. Brienne dithered for a second before setting her training sword down and following him. Dazed. Breathless. Heart beating hard.

Ser Jaime waited for her in the Lord Commander’s chambers, his head down, his eyes dark.

“Look out of the window,” he said. His voice little more than a whisper. He walked past her, closing the doors behind her. “That window.”

He pointed to the small, recessed window that overlooked the yard. Below, she could see the figures of the other squires drilling.

She walked over to it, slowly. Silently.

“Now I want you to lean into the windowsill. Bend over, so your face is very close to the glass.”

“I – I don’t understand.”

“It’s not your job to understand. You’re my squire. Put your elbows on the windowsill, bend over, and recite the steps of the drill to me.”

Brienne hesitated, but Ser Jaime was her knight. She was his squire. She slid her palms onto the cool stone surface of the windowsill, bending until her head near touched the glass. She waited until the figures below began their next round of drilling. Recited the steps in time with their movements.

“Step. Strike. Parry. Lunge,” she began, her voice echoing a little off the glass in front of her. “Step. Strike. Par—”

_WHACK_

Brienne jolted forward, her head colliding with the windowpane. Her arse stung. He – he’d –

She turned around, twisting her head to look at Ser Jaime, where he stood behind her. His head was tipped forward, his curls hanging over his face, obscuring it in shadow. He’d smacked her! He’d spanked her, right on her right arse cheek.

“Continue,” he said in that same soft, deadly voice.

“Uh …”

“Lady Brienne, _continue_.”

She stared at him a moment longer. Stared at those green eyes, at the teeth on his lip. Then, she turned slowly back to the window, watching the figures of the other squires again.

“St-step. Strike. Par—”

_WHACK_

Again, on her right arse cheek. She’d braced her elbows this time so she didn’t bang her head, and she continued to recite.

“Parry. Lunge. Ste –”

_WHACK_

“Step. Strike. Parry –”

_WHACK_

“Lunge. Step –”

_WHACK_

More breathless now, a little faster.

“Step. Strike! Pa-parry –”

_WHACK_

“Lunge.”

_WHACK_

_WHACK_

“Step –”

Not even in time with the other squires now.

_WHACK_

“Strike!”

_WHACK_

“Parry!”

_WHACK_

“Lunge!”

_WHACK_

_WHACK_

_WHACK_

Faster and faster, again and again, both cheeks, in between. Brienne grunted with each blow, not bothering to recite now as he spanked her, harder and faster and harder still.

She trembled, breathless, waiting for the next one and the next one: her face burning, her arse on fire. Then, suddenly, Ser Jaime collapsed over her, his left hand catching the windowsill right beside hers, his thumb brushing the outer edge of her little finger.

The smell of him, his hair oil. The heat of his skin through his doublet, the warmth of his breath on Brienne’s newly-shorn neck. Ser Jaime. Ser Jaime. They panted in unison. Shuddered together.

He stood up, sliding his thumb along her finger. Her finger arched to curl around his thumb.

He slowly walked away, leaving her bent over the windowsill, breathing hard. Not looking at her.

“Straighten yourself up and come back to the yard.”

He left the room and closed the door behind himself, leaving her alone.

Alone.

Slowly, Brienne stood up from the windowsill. Stepped away from it on shaky knees.

She went into his bedchamber, to the mirror on his dressing table. Pulled down her breeches and her smallclothes. Her arse glowed red; it was hot to the touch. It felt remarkable. Precious. Exciting beyond words.

Brienne took a shuddering breath, and relaced her breeches.

She went back down to the yard in a near-dream, picked up her sword and got back to drilling. Filled with light. Filled with peace. She felt … _beautiful_.

At the end of the session, as she was putting the sparring swords back in the rack in the armoury, Ser Jaime rapped his knuckles on the door to get her attention.

“Lady Brienne?”

She turned to him, silent and expectant.

“Good drilling.”

He turned away, and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I realise I have no restraint. I will try to wait a little longer before I post the next chapter, but I'm promising NOTHING!


	3. I Feel More Than I've Ever Felt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Brienne explore their boundaries.

Days passed. Weeks passed.

Brienne was a bad squire. A very very bad squire. The worst. Remiss with her footwork, sloppy with her swordstrokes. Lazy and in need of _much_ correction. Ser Jaime knew she could do better. Ser Jaime tried to teach her.

He tried to teach her a _lot_.

She spent so much time bent over the windowsill her palms were raw from gripping it. Her arse was permanently tender. Her throat ached from making the kind of noises that she had only heard emanating from brothels.

Ser Jaime took her with him everywhere he went. Made her stand guard outside Small Council meetings, meetings with his brother about his upcoming wedding. Outside the stable when he fed his horse. Outside the privy when he relieved himself.

He carried a little pouch of sweet dried cranberries on his belt. When Brienne did well, he placed one in the middle of his palm. Held it out so she could dip her head and take it from his hand.

When she did badly, he didn’t just spank her; Ser Jaime was endlessly creative when it came to punishment.

“On your knees, squire,” he’d say, lounging at his desk or on his chaise or back on his bed with his shirt open and his luscious curls spread across the pillows behind him. Brienne would get to her knees and serve her knight wine, or food, or crawl across the floor to fetch him things he needed with her teeth.

He would collapse onto his chaise, and she would serve as his footstool, his boots on her back while he read his scrolls. Ser Jaime read _slowly_.

Sometimes he’d put a hound’s collar about her neck, chain her to a ring he’d had installed on the wall. He’d run his hands through her hair like he was petting her, tickle beneath her chin with his long, elegant fingers. Then he would put his dinner plates on the floor before her once he’d finished eating, tell her to lick them clean. Brienne did, and he’d watch her do it, pulling his lip between his teeth as she ran her tongue through the remnants of his gravy, her eyes on his eyes.

He’d also found a contraption, or made it – Brienne didn’t know. Perhaps Ser Jaime had once used it on his sister – or more like she on him. It was a pillory, removed from its post, which he put about Brienne’s neck and wrists and locked, fingering the keys hanging from his belt while he gave her chores to do.

“Pick up my clothes, squire,” he’d demand. Or “Sweep the floor, squire.”

And Brienne would stumble about, bending her aching neck this way and that as she tried to negotiate her task with her hands restrained at the same height as her head.

Ser Jaime would ignore her, while he stroked the stem of his wine glass slowly up and down.

Then there was the banquet.

Ser Jaime’s brother, Lord Tyrion Lannister, was to marry a Frey girl, Lady Amerei, in the hopes of repairing some of the rifts between the Crown and the North. Privately, Brienne knew, Lord Tyrion and Ser Jaime did not think much of the match – it was something of an insult as the bride was no maiden and had a reputation for promiscuity.

“I hear she’s pretty enough,” Ser Jaime said to his brother.

Brienne could not help but overhear as she stood guard outside the door. The brothers had eaten lunch together, and she was near hopping from foot-to-foot by this point – as he often did, Ser Jaime had bid her drink a whole flagon of water before they’d left the Lionspire and now she needed a privy like never before. _Bladder training_ , he called it, and she could see the pulsebeat quicken in his neck whenever he spoke of it.

“Hmm,” Lord Tyrion grunted. “Pretty, or pretty for a Frey?”

“I know not!” Ser Jaime laughed.

“You can laugh now, but it will be your turn soon,” Lord Tyrion said. “And I suspect I know who Father has in mind.”

“Who?” Ser Jaime demanded.

But Lord Tyrion just laughed. “Father’s too clever for the likes of us. You won’t even see it coming, brother. Just as I didn’t.”

The Frey girl’s contingent arrived two days later, and so a welcome banquet was held in the Queen’s Ballroom, with all the nobles at court expected to attend, including those of House Tarth.

Father, by this point, was confused more oft than not; Brienne was forced to attend in his place as representative of her house.

Dorola helped Brienne to dress in a soft, understated midnight blue gown with a lace neckline and full sleeves. Her short hair did not look right with a gown; nor did the muscles she had gained while training and lugging the pillory about, but … it would have been an insult for a maid to wear breeches to a banquet. House Tarth was quite disgraced enough.

Indeed, as befit her status as the daughter of a disgraced House, Brienne was seated near the back of the ballroom. Ser Hyle was seated opposite her, though – whether by design or accident Brienne did not know.

Ser Jaime sat beside his sister at the top table, two seats to the right of the King. He and Cersei were dressed in identical shades of gold and red, and they looked as alike as two halves of the same coin, though they studiously and spitefully ignored each other.

“You look very lovely this evening, my Lady,” lied Ser Hyle as he filled his glass with red wine.

Brienne forced herself to tear her eyes from Ser Jaime and his sister. “My thanks, Ser.”

She and Ser Hyle had continued to take walks together. He was pleasant company, and generous with his gifts – so far he had bought her an illuminated book, and a blue silk favour that she could wear when he competed in the upcoming wedding tourney. He was funny, too, and kind enough that he had never made an issue of her looks. She had decided that were they matched, it might be a duty she could bear.

“Have you heard the gossip?” he asked as he picked up his glass. Hyle was quite fond of rumour and hearsay, always filling Brienne in on what he’d heard.

“What gossip is that?”

“About the bride-to-be. The Lady Frey.”

Brienne shook her head. She _had_ , though only through a closed door from Ser Jaime and Lord Tyrion.

“They call her _Gatehouse Ami_ ,” he said with a grin. “It’s told as a young girl she was caught in a stable with three grooms at once!”

“Three grooms?” asked Brienne, her brow wrinkling in confusion. It took her a moment to realise what Hyle meant. _Sex!_ She’d heard the Lady was promiscuous, but she hadn’t realised these men had all been together. All at once.

“Three!” Hyle confirmed with a grin.

“Sounds like she’ll be a good match for Lord Tyrion, then,” Brienne said absently. She’d noticed Ser Jaime was looking at her. Surreptitiously – just a slide of his eyes in her direction as his table was served with food.

When she looked back to Hyle, he was looking at her with a strange expression.

“What?” she asked.

“That’s different,” he said.

“What is?”

“Lord Tyrion. To Gatehouse Ami. I would have thought your father would have explained.”

Brienne furrowed her brow. “Explained what?”

“Men have … different appetites to women. For a man, it’s normal. For a woman … well, it’s a sickness. Quite unnatural.”

Brienne had to restrain herself from rolling her eyes. She had spent most of her life being told she was _quite unnatural_ for a woman. “Does that mean I should expect my husband to make a second home in a brothel and bring some disease back to our marriage bed?”

“A brothel maybe not – but all noblemen have a mistress or two, do they not?” he asked with a twinkling eye. “It’s tradition.”

Brienne could hardly argue. Her father had taken more than his fair share of women over the years. She did not know if he had done so while her mother was alive, though. “Tis a depressing thought.”

“You need not worry, my Lady,” he smiled. “A chivalrous man knows that discretion is his friend.”

“But it’s not the same for women?”

“Not at all! A man must know his children are his children – another man’s seed in the mix could spell the end of his line. A woman’s fertility is sacrosanct, tis the way the gods intended.”

By this time, the servers had reached their table, dishing out cuts of veal and venison along with honeyed vegetables and spiced broth.

There was a tug on Brienne’s sleeve; it was the boy Podrick, Lord Tywin’s page. He held a folded piece of parchment, which he slipped into her hand.

“S-ser Jaime bid me g-give you this, my L-lady.”

She thanked the boy and unfolded the parchment on her lap to read it.

_Squire,_

_One slice of venison._

_One turnip._

_Two carrots._

_No broth._

_As many apricot tarts as you’d like to eat._

It read. Then beneath it:

_Eat your meat with your hands._

Brienne looked up at Ser Jaime, but he was looking elsewhere, ticking off a servant and drinking his wine. Red wine, Brienne noticed. He always drank red when he was with his family. She felt her face get hot. Pressed her thighs together.

“My Lady?” asked Hyle, from a million miles away. “Is aught amiss?”

“Hmm?”

“The note?”

“It – it’s from Ser Jaime,” she said. “Reminding me not to drink too much as we have an early start on the morrow.”

Hyle grunted. For some reason probably to do with her sex, he was not fond of her speaking too oft about her squiring with Ser Jaime.

The servers were at her shoulder then, a platter of meat and a platter of vegetables.

“One slice of venison,” she said. “One turnip. Two carrots. No broth.”

Ser Jaime was looking at her _now_ , she noticed. Making sure she did as she was told.

“Is that all you want?” asked Hyle incredulously. He was used to Brienne having an appetite to match her stature. “It’s a banquet!”

“My midday meal was large,” she lied. In truth, she had been thrown a few scraps from Ser Jaime’s plate where she had been chained to the wall.

They started eating, and Brienne cut slowly into her turnip, knowing Ser Jaime wanted to see her obey. She put it into her mouth and closed her eyes to chew it. It tasted good. It tasted good because _he_ had given her permission to eat it.

She ate her meagre portion of vegetables like that, slowly slicing into them, savouring every mouthful. Wanting to moan as they slid down her throat. A gift from Ser Jaime, every bite. Then she carefully put down her cutlery and picked up her slice of venison in her hands.

She tore a chunk from it with her teeth. Chewed it with gusto. She could see Ser Jaime, licking his lips slowly at the top table.

Hyle looked at her as though she’d gone quite mad.

“We always eat venison with our hands on Tarth,” she said with a shrug. “It’s tradition.”

Despite the strange eating habits she’d displayed, including the consumption of four very delicious, very sticky apricot tarts, Hyle nonetheless offered to walk her back to her chambers, and once there, placed the usual chaste kiss to the side of her chin.

She bid him goodnight and went inside.

Father was asleep, but Dorola was awake, sitting by the fire mending a tunic of Brienne’s that she’d torn while sparring with the other squires. She looked up to Brienne with a smile.

“How was the banquet?”

“Good, thank you.”

“Was he there?”

“Who?”

“Your Knight!”

“Of course, it’s his brother’s – oh!” Belatedly, she realised that Dorola was talking about Hyle. Of course she was. Why would she ever think Ser Jaime was Brienne’s knight? “Yes. He walked me home.”

“He seems very interested in you.”

“He does,” Brienne agreed. Though more likely, it was her title.

“And you in him?”

“Does that matter?”

Dorola looked sadly at Brienne – she had come to the Evenfall court a singer, a free woman from the Free Cities. She knew little and less about the lives of Westerosi noblewomen.

“If a match is made, it is made,” Brienne sighed. “I will bed my husband, do my duty and birth babes if I can. What I think of my suitor matters little.”

“That … does not seem nice.”

“Nice? No … but it is honourable. And perhaps it means Father can go home someday.”

“He is much worse here,” Dorola said, looking sadly over at Father’s prone form in the bed. “Much worse.”

“The Evenstar needs Evenfall,” Brienne whispered. It almost felt like something magical, like a curse.

Dorola nodded.

“I should sleep,” Brienne said after a moment. “I have to wake early to be in the yard.”

She took a candle and went into her bedchamber, closing the door behind her. She washed and removed her gown, slipped into her sleeping shift and brushed her hair.

The note from Ser Jaime fell out of her gown as she hung it on its peg. Brienne opened the folded parchment again, spread it flat on the blankets. When had he written it? Had he written it beforehand, perhaps as he dressed in his finest silks in the Lionspire? Had he scribbled it hastily in the ballroom as he watched her across the tables?

She looked at herself in the looking glass, imagining it was Ser Jaime, looking at her right now. Here in her bedchamber. Ready for bed.

She pulled up her shift, a little at a time, exposing her knees, exposing her thighs. Her hands slipped between them. Would Ser Jaime watch this, if he were here? Would he tell her to stop? Would he touch her himself?

Brienne wanted him to.

She closed her eyes and imagined that her hands were his hands, though she knew his would be far more graceful. More artful. He would do it in silence, she knew. Not looking at her. Not saying anything.

She stroked herself until she was swooning with pleasure, imagining it was Ser Jaime who touched her secret spot, Ser Jaime who knew her body like this, Ser Jaime wanting to watch her toes curl and her knees shake, wanting to see her ugly face all red and gasping like a landed fish.

She lay back on the bed now, hips arching against her own touch, straining for it, hand moving faster and faster and faster. Now she imagined Ser Jaime on top of her, all spiteful smiles and exquisite curls as he told her he was going to take her maidenhead.

“Yes!” she panted, imagining how he would grasp her thighs, hard enough to bruise, trying to imagine how he would look, naked and aroused. How his _cock_ would be hard, how he’d push it inside her … how much it would _hurt_.

“I’m your squire!” she gasped. “I’m your _squire_!”

And then her pleasure was on her, radiant and thumping and sweaty and shuddering. Sweet and wet and sordid all at once.

Brienne melted onto the bed, her huge limbs soft and useless and her skin singing with contentment. Ser Jaime … _Jaime …_

She got up to wash her hands and splash her overheated face before sliding into bed and pulling the blankets tight about herself. She wrapped her arms around her belly, imagining he was there behind her. Holding her. She wanted him to hold her. Keep her safe.

The next morning was overbright, and Brienne had something of a thick head thanks to the wine she had drunk without much food to soak it up. She ended up being a little late in reporting to the yard, which under normal circumstances would have had Ser Jaime ordering her up to the Lionspire for a spanking before they had even started drilling, but today was different.

Today, Ser Addam Marbrand, Commander of the City Watch, was in attendance, and he and Ser Jaime were on the benches in the pavilion, poring over some scrolls. The other squires were sparring half-heartedly, so she joined them, practising her stances and then comfortably beating Clarreth Butterwell, as she always did.

As the morning wore on, so did Ser Jaime’s meeting with Ser Addam. At one point he shouted to his squires to start their usual round of drilling even as another member of the Lionguard joined them for some more discussion.

It was the wedding, Brienne knew. The logistics of keeping everyone safe when people who had been mortal enemies just half a year ago would be mixing and mingling at a celebration weighed heavily on Ser Jaime’s mind.

There was much to plan, much to work out. By the time Ser Addam and the other Lionguard (whose name Brienne did not know) left, it was near midday. Ser Jaime was still surrounded by scrolls, making notes on diagrams and scratching his head.

As the afternoon wore on, Brienne slid slightly out of time with the other squires, quite deliberately stepping and striking somewhat faster than they did. Normally, Ser Jaime would order her upstairs for such an infraction, but when she dared to slide her eyes in his direction, he had his face still buried in a scroll.

As he packed up at the end of the day, Brienne decided desperate measures were called for. As she moved into her parry stance, she slid her heel in that lazy way that she knew Ser Jaime despised.

When he called for the squires to stop for the day, Brienne came into the pavilion and drank from her water bottle. Tipped some over her sweating head and ran her fingers through her hair.

“I’m sorry my drilling was a little sloppy today, Ser Jaime,” she said as the other squires drifted away.

“Hmm?” he looked up from the last scroll he hadn’t yet packed away, confusion on his face.

Brienne fell to her knees. “I made a _lot_ of mistakes.”

“I’m working,” Ser Jaime said.

Brienne got to her feet with a sigh. Picked up her things and went for her usual walk.

As she approached Maegor’s Holdfast on her way home, a boy ran up to her; Lord Tywin’s page Podrick.

“S-ser!” he called. “I mean … m-my Lady.” He looked flustered. Urgent.

“Yes?”

“It’s your f-father. L-lord Selwyn. L-lord T-Tywin bid me come find you.”

“Why? Has something happened?”

“Yes, my Lady. Your f-father has been taken to the g-grandmaester.”

“Oh, Gods! Where?”

Podrick led her, her heart pounding, her palms sweating, vomit rising in her throat.

The grandmaester’s chambers were dark and hot, and the air was ripe with the smell of death. Brienne groaned as soon as she saw Father. He was bloody and dirty, unconscious but moaning softly. Brienne flew to his side.

“Lady Brienne.”

It was Tywin Lannister. She had not noticed him when she came into the room, so focused had she been on Father.

“My – my Lord,” Brienne managed, getting to her feet. “Please, what happened to my father?”

“Apparently he was wandering about the city,” Lord Tywin said. “Confused. The guards believed him to be drunk.”

“No, he wouldn’t, he –”

“He was in a state of confusion,” Lord Tywin said in a voice that brooked no argument.

Brienne fell silent. Ser Jaime used the same tone – she could see that the son had learned it from the father.

“He would not go with the guards. He escaped them. And … he fell into the well on Visenya’s Hill.”

“Into a well?”

Brienne looked at poor Father. No wonder he was filthy.

“He’s broken both legs,” said the Grandmaester, hobbling about by the bedside. “Open wounds, both. I’ve given him some milk of the poppy and dressed them, but …”

“But what?” Brienne demanded.

“He is in a state of severe shock,” the Grandmaester continued. “And he is not in good health. To speak with candour, my Lady, I don’t expect him to survive the night.”

“No!” Brienne cried. “Father …”

She thought she would cry, but nothing came out. At her sides, her hands clenched into fists and her eyes closed.

When she opened them again, Lord Tywin’s eyes were on her.

“I will take my leave,” he said quietly.

Brienne nodded. Bowed a little. “Yes, my Lord. Thank you.”

He moved to go but stopped himself. Looked up at her. “Did my son ask you to cut your hair like that?”

Brienne blinked. “Yes, my Lord.”

Lord Tywin snorted. “I thought as much.” Then he was gone, and Brienne could have sworn she saw a smirk on his face as he went.

The Grandmaester, it turned out, was not right about Father. He did not even last the hour.

Brienne held Father’s hand, spoke to him of the beautiful places on Tarth – the shoals, the rockpools, the forests on the hills they had ridden through together so many times. Spoke to him of how beautiful the moon was on the water at night, how calm the waves were in the summer.

Lord Selwyn Tarth, the Evenstar, passed from this world at dusk, just as the first stars appeared in the sky. It was terrible, but it was beautiful, too.

Brienne stood and watched as Pycelle pulled a shroud over Father. Her eyes still dry.

Then she bade the maester goodnight and went back to their chambers.

Dorola flew at her as soon as she crossed the threshold, grabbing both her hands, pleading for news.

“Where were you?” Brienne demanded.

“Here! I was here … Lord Tywin would not let me near. He said a mistress has no right! I … he told me that if he saw me near the maester’s chamber again, he would hang me!”

Brienne sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Well? Is Sel – is he all right?”

Brienne squeezed the other woman’s hands. Squeezed them _hard_. “No.”

“No?”

“He died, Dorola.”

“He … no!”

Dorola’s face searched Brienne’s, trying to see the truth, desperately hoping it was what … a jest? A trick? A lie?

“He died,” she said again, and her voice … it was a voice she didn’t recognise, empty and cold and lost. It all but echoed from her dry, exhausted mouth.

Father was dead. Father was _dead_. _Father_ was dead.

Dorola collapsed. Her legs gave way beneath her, and Brienne was forced to catch her. Hold her up. She buried her face in Brienne’s meagre bosom and wept and wept.

Brienne took her to the bed. Held her while she cried, lying on Father’s pillow, surrounded by the smell of him.

“What will become of me?” Dorola cried. “What will become of me without him?”

Brienne didn’t know. She stroked Dorola’s hair, knowing Father would want her to be kind. To lay with Dorola until she fell asleep.

Then Brienne got up. Paced the floor. Burning. Drowning. Strangling. Tearing in two.

She wanted her bundle. She wanted it badly. Wanted to hurt herself until her feelings had somewhere to go, so they could bleed out of her skin, and she could cope with them.

Instead, she went to find Ser Jaime.

The Lionguards outside the Lionspire turned her away. Ser Jaime was not inside, they said. He guards the King’s chamber tonight, they said. Brienne wondered if that was true, or if he were just cowering under his bed again.

But she went back to Maegor’s Holdfast nonetheless, up the stairs and through the halls, through the beautiful corridors where the royal family lived, through atriums and night gardens she didn’t know existed.

Ser Jaime was outside the King’s bedchamber.

He was stunning in the moonlight – his golden armour washed colourless, his red cape as black as midnight. His hair a cascade of curls down his back.

He saw her coming. Put his hand on his sword, that lion-headed pommel glittering in the low light. Rubies for eyes.

She held up her hands, to show she was unarmed. Of course she was unarmed.

“Yes?” he said. “Lady Brienne?”

She tried to smile. He did not smile back.

“Ser Jaime,” she said. Her body ached – he was just so _beautiful_.

“I – I just …” She trailed off.

He said nothing. Continued to look at her.

“I wanted you … I need you to …”

“You need me to what?”

How could she say it? What words could she, Brienne of Tarth, traitor to the Crown, pathetic squire and great ugly _creature_ , say to him? _Please, Ser, I want you to hurt me? My father died, I can’t cope and I need you to spank me?_

“I … I … I just wanted you not to forget about that problem with your saddle. I didn’t know if you’d had a chance to tell the groom about it?”

He blinked. “I did.”

“Oh. Good. That’s … good.”

He nodded. Shifted his weight to his other foot. “Thank you, Lady Brienne.” He turned away. Went back to the King’s door. Stood with his back to her.

She looked at him for a moment. He might as well have been a statue, carved from marble.

Brienne went downstairs and got back into bed with Dorola.

Father’s mistress woke. Opened her red, tear-stained eyes. “Where did you go?”

“I needed some air,” Brienne lied. “I felt … unwell.”

Dorola nodded. “It’s true, isn’t it. I keep hoping that I dreamed it.”

Brienne thought of Father, lying on the bed in the maester’s chamber. Dirty. Bloody. Cold. Alone. She swallowed. “It’s true.”

“Can I stay with you? Here … as your Lady’s maid, or … your washerwoman or your - your squire’s helper? Something?”

“You want to stay? With me?”

Dorola nodded. “I know what your people … _Westerosi_ think of people like me. Mistresses, yes? It’s why I was not allowed to be with Sel in the maester’s chambers.”

Brienne closed her eyes.

“You think I am here for money, or power over men and things that are not mine. You think I will disappear now or find another man to buy me jewels.”

“No,” said Brienne. “Of course I –”

“I _loved_ him. From the first moment I saw him. Your father was everything. So generous and caring and so full of love. I don’t pretend to truly understand your ways … your houses and your wars and your Iron Throne, but I am part of House Tarth. I would be loyal to you, and I would not leave you.”

Brienne sighed.

“What, is there an oath I should swear?” Dorola asked.

“There’s no oath. But … there’s no House Tarth any more, is there?”

“Of course there is!”

“No. Not in truth. We both saw Evenfall burn. Ser Goodwin, Maester Orlyn, Septa Roelle … all our people are dead. Even if I were to marry Ser Hyle, if I expunged our family’s sin enough for Lord Tywin, we have nothing to go back to.”

“You could rebuild it!”

“Me?”

“Yes! You are the Evenstar now, are you not?”

“I am. But what does that mean?”

“The Evenstar is a King, yes? This is what Sel always said.”

“Once. Perhaps. When Tarth was ignorant of everything but its own shores, the Evenstar was a King. But look at us, Dorola. This room is no Kingdom. We own less than the servants next door. How could I pay men to rebuild Evenfall?”

“Your father would not have said that.”

“Father would have lied to us both, to protect our feelings. To himself, as well.”

Dorola was silent for a long moment. Then she gave a small nod. “He would have done.”

“Do you not have family to go to in the Free Cities?”

“No.”

“No friends?”

“I have not been there in a decade. I don’t know if anyone still lives.”

“I am all but a prisoner here, Dorola. You realise that?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then why would you wish to stay?”

“I want to help you. I think that is what Sel would want. He would want me to make sure you are happy.”

_“Happy_?!”

“Happy. Eating food and being warm. Having clean and mended clothes. I can do those things for you. For Sel.”

“Dorola …”

“Please, Brienne. _Please_ , my Lady Brienne. My Evenstar. Please.”

Brienne chewed her lip. Nodded. “If you truly want to.”

“I do.”

“But you are not my vassal. Ever – you are a free woman, Dorola. Free to leave whenever you wish.”

“Thank you.”

They fell silent, then, both of them looking up at the dingy stone ceiling above the bed. Brienne got up to throw another log onto the fire, and when she went back to bed, Dorola was asleep again.

Brienne stayed awake for several more hours.

When she woke in the morning, it was raining. Hard. Her first thought was for Father’s cough, and then, with a stabbing surge of emotion, she remembered. Father was dead. She was the Evenstar.

She dragged herself from her bed and got dressed for her day.

If Ser Jaime knew about Father’s death, he said nothing to Brienne about it. He said nothing much to her about anything – put her outside the door to guard again. Ignored her for most of the day.

And the day after that, and the day after that.

There were no spankings, no hound collar, no serving things to him on her knees. He paid no heed to mistakes she made in the yard, either. It was just like she was a regular squire again.

Weeks passed.

Father was given no funeral – some Goldcloaks brought a box to their chambers with Father’s bones in. Dorola wept piteously over the box, and Brienne stored it away in a cupboard, making a vow to herself and to Dorola that Father would be laid to rest on Tarth.

Sometimes, she spoke to Father, as she was readying herself for her day. As she ate her meals, as she brushed her hair. Sometimes, it felt as though he answered.

But still, she could not cry. Still, she carried around that knot in her belly and that sickness in her throat.

Ser Jaime barely looked at her. When he did, he just looked … sorry. Guilty. Ashamed of himself.

There was a shell about him now; she didn’t want that. She wanted what they’d had before.

She went to the gardens after a particularly sweaty morning sparring in the yard. Took a rose, a perfect, crimson one in absolute full bloom.

She left it on his desk, along with her smallclothes. Neglected to take his dinner plate away as well.

He didn’t react – next time she went into his chamber, Ser Jaime’s face was buried in a scroll, and the rose and smallclothes were nowhere to be seen. The dinner plate remained. He did not look up.

Brienne walked home in the rain.

Dorola was out, washing clothes again she presumed. The chamber was sad and empty and as depressing as always.

Brienne went through to her bedchamber, though she hadn’t slept there since Father’s death. Closed the door, reclined on the bed and put her hands in her breeches.

The pleasure came fast, a gasping surge that left her shuddering and weak, but it brought no real relief. Nothing did. Nothing compared to what Ser Jaime did.

But curse him to the deepest of the Seven Hells, Ser Jaime wouldn’t do it any more.

She washed her hands and splashed her flushed face before going to attend to the fire. It was then that she noticed it. Resting by the door, clearly left behind by Dorola when she went to wash their clothes, was a laundry bat.

Brienne contemplated it a moment, sizing it up the same way she would a weapon. It was long, with a thin handle and a broad paddle. Heavy, but not heavy enough to be awkward.

She picked it up in one hand and thwacked it onto the palm of the other. It made a good, meaty slapping sound, and her palm stung pleasantly.

Yes – before she’d had time to talk herself out of it, she’d taken it into her room. Pulled down her breeches to bare her arse.

It was a difficult angle to get right in the small space – she bent over the bed a little and twisted her arm behind herself, holding the bat. She widened her knees and tried to brace herself. Squeezed her eyes shut and tried to picture Ser Jaime behind her. The heat of his skin, the smell of his fragrance. That slight ripple of leonine danger. Yes. _Yes_.

She smacked the bat down onto her arse. Again. Again.

The sound was right; the force, too. Her cheeks stung pleasantly. Warmly. Just as they did when Ser Jaime spanked her.

But … it wasn’t right. It wasn’t the same, not at all. There was no exciting clench of anticipation, not knowing when Ser Jaime would strike. There was no rising chorus of panted breaths from him behind her, no natural build to a crescendo of spanking that thrilled them both. It was a hollow, dead facsimile.

She dropped the bat and pulled her breeches up, feeling foolish and perverted, all at once. Trying to spank her own arse in her bedroom … what would Father think if he were watching her now? Was that the behaviour of the Evenstar?

Well, actually, she had to admit with a chuckle, it wasn’t something she would put past Father. He had always been quite ostentatious in his pleasures. Maybe he’d had Dorola tie him up and spank him, too. Maybe it was a perversion that had been in her family since the time of old Edwyn Tarth.

The next day, as Brienne walked to the yard for her morning’s drilling, her eyes fell upon the scraps cart, back in its place awaiting a horse. The one Ser Jaime had sent her into in search of his hairpin. It gave her an idea.

After the midday meal was eaten, Brienne set about some chores in Ser Jaime’s chambers – a little sweeping, a little tidying of his bedchamber. He, of course, paid no attention.

On his bedside table were the usual array of balled-up, stuck-together handkerchiefs – apparently Ser Jaime liked to blow his nose a lot before he went to sleep? She pushed them aside and opened his trinket box. Sitting there, untouched since the day she had seen them last, were the four identical lion-shaped hairpins.

She picked one out and shoved it in her pocket before she’d had a chance to talk herself out of it. Helped herself to a couple of sheets of writing parchment, too.

She took them through to pick up Ser Jaime’s dinner plates from his desk. He’d not eaten much – there was still half a sausage and some vegetables swimming in gravy on his plate. Careful to ensure he was ignoring her, she put the hairpin on one of the sheets of parchment, and then scraped his plate over it. Carrots and gravy and slices of sausage covered the pin, congealing where it had grown cold. Brienne smiled. Folded the parchment around it all.

Then she took a basket of Ser Jaime’s dirty laundry down to the washhouse, taking deep lungfuls of the scent of his sweat and perfume on them as she went. Oh, why did he have to smell so _good_?

On the way back, she took a detour to Maegor’s Holdfast, into her chambers, and dug through Father’s things until she found it. His special seal, the one that had Tarth’s sigil overlaid with a four-pointed star. The seal of the Evenstar.

Brienne used the other piece of parchment to make a scroll around the folded piece that contained the befouled hairpin, and dripped some sealing wax over the join. Used the seal of the Evenstar to mark it.

She walked calmly back to the Lionspire, climbed the stairs and dropped the scroll in Ser Jaime’s letterbox. There it would sit, she knew. She knew already that he wouldn’t get to it today.

Indeed, once she got back to his chambers, Ser Jaime was in his bedroom, prettying himself by the mirror ready to go out.

“I have a meeting,” he told Brienne as she straightened his bedsheets and plumped his pillows. “More wedding security arrangements, of course.”

His eyes caught hers in the looking glass, and she stopped what she was doing, one of the pillows clutched between her hands. For a moment, she thought he might call her over, sit her down and make her drink a flagon of water and order her to stand guard outside the door of whoever he was meeting with.

There was something in his eyes, something frightened, but something aroused, as well. He was thinking about it too, she knew.

Ser Jaime looked away. “Goodbye, Brienne,” he said, and left.

That evening, Ser Hyle waited outside the Lionspire as he often did when she finished her duties. Usually, they took a walk together through the gardens, or sat beneath the heart tree in the Godswood and talked.

Today, Brienne was not in the mood.

“Fight me?” she asked when he tried to lead her away from the Lionspire.

“What?” He grinned at her as if he thought she was jesting.

“In the yard – let me spar with you?”

The grin faded from his face. “My Lady …”

“I am a squire, am I not?”

“Yes, but –”

“Then fight me. Let me see how I fare against a knight of the City Watch.”

“Very well,” he said, but he sounded reluctant in the extreme.

Brienne fetched them some training swords. Took off her cloak and stripped to her sleeveless tunic.

Ser Hyle took off his cloak, too, but left the rest of his clothes on. Got into a hesitant stance.

They circled each other for a minute, sizing each other up, before Ser Hyle came at her in a lazy strike. She caught it before it was even halfway on her, parried it back.

He did it again – she caught it again. He was humouring her, she realised. Treating her like a child. He didn’t actually expect her to have any skill with the sword.

She came at him herself then, using an overhead hack that Ser Goodwin had taught her, one that always looked like it came from nowhere.

_That_ took Ser Hyle by surprise – the knight barely got his sword up in time to stop it striking his crown. Then she had him on the back foot, poking a series of slashes at his midsection, ending each of them with a twist that she had seen Ser Jaime do so many times.

Ser Hyle was utterly overwhelmed, staggering and stumbling back under the force of her attack. Leaving himself open in several vital areas that meant she could have killed him had the fight been for real, or she’d had a dagger.

Probably she’d taken Ser Hyle by surprise, that was all. She stepped back, to give him a moment to gather his thoughts.

He attacked her again, rather angrily this time, that familiar rage of a man who couldn’t quite believe he was being bested by a woman. Brienne knew _well_ how to deal with that.

She blocked him and blocked him. Parried him. Caught his blows again and again until he was breathless. Sweating.

Then she attacked him once more, full bore this time, driving him back toward the pavilion. By this time, he was all but exhausted, and his blocks and parries were weak and slow. She slipped past his guard with ease and disarmed him, sending his training sword spinning away into the dirt. With ease.

_Probably the finest swordswoman in the Seven Kingdoms._

Ser Jaime’s words, but she’d thought them flattery. She hadn’t truly thought she could disarm a knight of the royal household, a Gate Captain of the City Watch no less, with ease.

“I see Ser Jaime has taught you a few little tricks!” Ser Hyle laughed, but his eyes were not laughing at all.

Brienne shrugged. She didn’t really know what to say.

Ser Hyle pulled his cloak back on – clearly, the sparring was over. Brienne collected the swords and dressed again, too.

“You’re very quiet,” he said to her as they left the yard. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

Brienne almost laughed. But there was a sinking stone in her gut, as well. _He couldn’t hurt her if he tried_.

The next day, she was on guard outside the door of the Lord Commander’s chamber again. Ser Jaime had a stream of visitors: family members, members of the Lionguard, various captains of various guards from both the families due to be joined in matrimony at the forthcoming wedding.

So it was almost midday by the time Ser Jaime asked Brienne to fetch his post box.

She carried it to his desk without a word, noticing that the scroll she had prepared for him was on top. The first one he’d look at. She poured him some wine, and he waved her away, back out of the door.

Ser Addam Marbrand was coming up the stairs, the usual bundle of maps and plans under his arm. “Is he in?” he asked.

“Yes, my Lord,” Brienne replied.

She knocked on the door.

“Give me – give me a moment!” Ser Jaime yelled.

“Ser Addam is here to see you, my Lord.”

“I said, give me a moment!”

“Is he all right?” asked Ser Addam.

“I know not, my Lord.”

Then, Ser Jaime opened the door. Just a crack, just enough to peer through with one eye. Looked at Ser Addam. Looked at Brienne. “Squire,” he barked. “Get in here.”

A little thrill ran through Brienne’s body. She knew that tone of voice. “But Ser Jaime,” she said in a tone of mock innocence. “Ser Addam is waiting.”

“ _Now_ , Squire.”

_Finally_.

Brienne followed him. Closed the door behind her. There, on his desk, on a fresh, flat sheet of parchment, was the food-covered hairpin.

She walked to the desk. Bent over it, elbows flat on the polished wooden surface. Presented her arse to him.

Ser Jaime didn’t say anything. She heard his footsteps on the rushes, walking towards her. When he spoke, his voice was low and hushed.

“Now pull down your breeches.”

Brienne hesitated. He had never wanted her to undress before. “Why?”

“You’re not worried that I’ll take your maidenhead, are you?” He took two more steps. Closer, she thought. “Don’t worry, I’m not interested. Now pull down your breeches.”

Brienne took a breath and then slid her hands to her waist. Fumbled at the laces on her breeches. Pushed them down to her knees.

She heard Ser Jaime breathing behind her. “Pull down your smallclothes.”

Brienne froze.

“I told you,” he said in that same barely-whispered voice. “I’m not going to fuck you.”

Brienne drew a slow, measured breath. Bent over like this, her legs apart to hold her breeches up at her knees, he would be able to see _everything_. No one had seen her naked since she had flowered. _No one_.

She lifted her hands to her waist again. Undid her smallclothes. Slowly, slowly. Slowly slid them off her hips and down her thighs. Imagining what she must look like, her ugly freckled arse pointing at the god of a man behind her. Her cunt on display for him.

Time seemed to stop. Were it not for her heartbeat, Brienne would have thought the whole world had halted around her. A long, agonising silence that seemed to fill the entire keep. Not a bird sang, not a tree moved.

Then, she heard a rustle of clothing behind her. And another.

Suddenly, his breathing was different. Laboured. Desperate. Sucked in through his teeth and hissed out the same way. She could feel him moving, too. Faster and faster behind her, hear his swordbelt rattling and his leather coat flapping.

He gasped. Let out a whispered “Oh …”

Then his breathing got harder still, and she could feel the heat from his body, closer and closer. Feel the air moving, over her bared skin.

Then, abruptly, he grabbed her. A hand, clutching her shoulder, fingers digging in _hard_. Brienne let out a little noise of surprise and then …

Something – something hot and wet and warm – splashed across the back of her tunic. Soaked through to her skin. Ser Jaime groaned.

Brienne stood frozen, bent over his desk, her eyes wide and her mouth open. Had he –? Was that –?

Ser Jaime breathed hard, and let out a sigh. His hand squeezed her shoulder. Stroked it, almost.

He let her go, and she heard the sounds of his clothes rustling again.

He walked around the back of his desk. Sat down in his chair.

Brienne gaped at him, still bending over the desk with her breeches and smallclothes about her knees.

He couldn’t look at her. His face was flushed, his brow sweaty. The curls at the front of his hair had gone quite frizzy. He looked so much smaller and more scared than she had ever seen him. He all but shrank in his chair.

“Send – send Ser Addam in, will you?” he said. “And fetch us some food, I think we will need to go over the midday meal. And … get yourself something. Some bread. Soup if they have it, just a little. And half an apple. Give the other half to my horse.”

She stood up, staring at him in disbelief. Pulled up her smallclothes and breeches.

“Yes?” he asked.

She nodded. Walked slowly away, warm wetness dripping down her back.

She opened the door, saw Ser Addam standing there with a _very_ confused look on his face.

“You can … go in, now,” Brienne said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ser Jaime hurriedly sweep the soiled hairpin into a drawer.

Ser Addam looked between them both, his brow furrowed. He walked past Brienne as she kept her soaked back against the door.

She closed the door behind him and fled for the privy.

It was a communal one in the Lionspire, but thankfully, it was empty most of the day as the various members of the Lionguard went about their duties.

Inside, by the door, was a full-length looking glass, presumably so the Lionguard could ensure they didn’t have their fine crimson cloaks tucked into their smallclothes after taking a shit.

Brienne looked into it, turning around to see the mess on her back. It _was_ … there was no denying it. Ser Jaime had covered her in his seed!

“Ser Jaime!” she whispered to the empty privy. He had looked at her naked, and it had aroused him. Made him _hard_. Made him _come_.

Brienne had a hand in her breeches now, her fingers pressed hard against her secret spot. Gasping … whimpering, breathing hard and sounding just the way _he_ had … the way he had when he _came_ all over her back.

She could smell his seed on her tunic, sharp and rich and exciting. She was covered in him, surrounded by him – it brought her to her pleasure _fast._ Brienne cried out to the empty privy as her pleasure surged through her, melting every bone in her body until she was soft and quivering, groaning with her head pressed against the wall.

She washed her hands and went to the kitchen to pick up some food for Ser Jaime and Ser Addam.

But when she got back, Ser Addam wasn’t there. Ser Jaime stood behind his desk looking resplendent – he had donned his golden armour and his crimson cape. He’d oiled his hair and put on his perfume, too.

“Are you – are you going somewhere?” she asked.

He didn’t answer. “How old are you?” he asked, instead.

She screwed up her brow. She didn’t understand – Ser Jaime already knew this. “I’m twenty.”

“Too old for a squire.”

“My Lord –”

“And a wench, too.”

“I can fight!”

“Squiring is not about fighting.”

“I serve you. Honourably.”

“You do,” he admitted.

“Your father –”

“My father was _wrong_!” he shouted.

Brienne jumped. “Wh-what?”

“You fight well, but … I – I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Yes, why?”

“Because I’m … I … I can’t ever knight you.”

Brienne scoffed. “Why not?”

Ser Jaime hung his head. “I’m sorry. Brienne. Just – just go home. Tell Clarreth –”

“Jaime, stop!”

He stepped back, startled. “ _J-Jaime_?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to understand. I’m dismissing you. Now. You are not longer my squire. So leave!”

She punched him in the mouth, hard enough to make him stagger into his desk, a clatter and clank of armour. He grabbed his chin and looked at her as if she’d gone quite mad. Then he came back at her, shouting in her face.

“Why did you drop wine all over my red shirt?” he barked.

“Because I fell over the breeches you’d left on the floor. You saw me!”

“You slouch all day outside that door – all I can hear is you grumping and sighing. Don’t you ever shut up?”

“Yes!”

“And you breathe all over my food while you’re serving it, it makes me feel sick!”

“I’ll stop.”

He stepped close to her then, lifted his face to hers like he might be about to kiss her. His eyes on her eyes and his breath in her mouth. Rage and passion and terror and _want_.

But of course, he turned away. Walked away. Sat down on the chaise with his back to Brienne.

“You have to go,” he said. “You have to go, or I won’t stop. There’s something … deeply wrong with me. First my sister and now …”

“I don’t care.”

She came over to him – he flinched.

“I can’t do this any more,” he said.

She reached out. Stroked her hand through his beautiful hair. “But I _want_ to be your squire. I want to be _yours_. I want to _know you_.”

He relaxed into her touch, his face softening and his mouth rounding into a soft o of longing. Gods, he was so beautiful.

He pulled away. “I’m so sorry for taking advantage of you. You’re a young maiden who has lost her father, and a hostage of the Crown to boot. What I did was unforgivable.”

“No …”

“I spoke to Ser Addam – he’ll take you on as his squire, you go with my highest recommendation.”

“No!”

“ _Yes_. I want you to leave, Brienne. Now.”

“I don’t want –”

“ _Now_!” he screamed, loud enough to make the windows rattle in their panes. “Go!”

Brienne turned and fled. She ran down the stairs, and for the first time since Father had died, the tears began to flow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who has read and commented. Hope you enjoyed chapter 3 just as much. It's a bit of a tear-jerker!


	4. I've Found Someone To Feel With

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne deals with the fallout from Jaime's choices.

Brienne cried.

She cried in bed, she cried as she washed. As she dressed, as she brushed her hair. Tears poured down her face as she ate her porridge, as she walked through the keep on her way to see Ser Addam. To become his squire as Ser Jaime had arranged.

“What’s amiss?” he asked her as soon as he laid eyes on her sobbing countenance. “Are – are you with child?” He looked quite frightened at the thought.

“N-no, my Lord,” Brienne wailed. “My father … he d-died.”

She did not add that it had happened a moon and a half ago.

“Oh,” Ser Addam said. “I did not know. My condolences. Well … we don’t have to start yet. Why don’t you take some time off beforehand? In truth, I am quite stretched for time as it is with the wedding approaching. We can begin when you’re …”

“Thank you, my Lord,” Brienne sniffled.

She fled the barracks of the City Watch before Ser Hyle saw her. Went home and threw herself back into bed. There she sobbed for the next two days.

Dorola soothed her, fetched her food. Sat beside her for hours, silent and gentle, just stroking her hair as she cried. Father’s mistress seemed reinvigorated when she had someone to care for.

Brienne got up and dressed on the third day, snuck into the stables and watched Ser Jaime and his squires drilling in the yard. Everything seemed the same for him. He lounged in the pavilion, watching them lazily, sunning himself in the last bit of autumn sunshine.

She watched him again the day after, and the day after that. Nothing had changed. There was just nothing for her to do about it.

It would never be the same, she realised. Not with Ser Hyle, not with anyone she was matched with. Never again would she know the thrill of what she had with Ser Jaime.

But Brienne was a practical woman, and she didn’t like the thought of that. One day she woke and decided she would do as men did, and get what she needed elsewhere. Perhaps if she one day wed, she could keep some measure of satisfaction in her marriage.

She dressed as a man, in some of Father’s finer clothes, hoping to pass as a wedding guest and not the ugly, plain, pitiful daughter of Tarth. It seemed to work – no one gave her a second look as she strolled out of the gates of the Red Keep.

The city below was enormous, sprawling districts and winding streets. Brienne had no real clue how to navigate it. Consequently, it took her most of the morning to find what she had always been told were plentiful here in the capital: a brothel.

“Come in, young lord,” the near-toothless proprietress called as she flashed a milk-white thigh at Brienne. Clearly, this was not one of the more upmarket establishments.

All the better, thought Brienne. She was less likely to be recognised by anyone residing in the keep.

She followed the woman into the dingy dwelling. As she had suspected, it was full of the sounds of moaning and groaning, most of which were highly exaggerated. The sounds made Brienne’s loins tingle nonetheless, imagining them coming from Ser Jaime. From herself.

“What are you looking for?” asked the woman. Two more women had come over and wrapped themselves around Brienne now, their hands roving over her body. One of them cupped a breast and drew her hand back as if burnt.

“’E’s a woman!” she cried accusatorially.

“Is that a problem?” Brienne asked.

“Not at all,” the proprietress said with a glare at her worker. “What can we do for you, milady?”

“I want you to hurt me,” Brienne said. “Spank me. On – on the bottom.”

The proprietress cackled. “Used to get wet when your Septa chastised you, did you?”

Brienne blushed. “No!” Her Septa’s cruelties had been of an altogether different kind.

“Well, we charge extra for the peculiar shit,” the proprietress said.

“Of – of course,” Brienne dug out Father’s purse from her pocket, which proved to be a mistake. The proprietress snatched it from her hand and emptied it into her own. Handed Brienne the empty purse back.

“Tarla,” the woman barked, jerking her head in the direction of one of the rooms.

The girl who had manhandled Brienne’s breasts took her by the hand. She was tiny, mouse-haired, with a pretty pockmarked face and an endearing overbite. “Come on, milady,” she said. “You’ve been a _naughty_ girl.”

The room was tiny, filled mostly by the stained, stinking bed. Brienne dithered, not knowing what to do, not knowing what to say.

The girl, Tarla, closed the door and shrugged out of her dress. She was naked beneath, full-breasted and wide-hipped with a spiderweb of scars about her belly. She had birthed a babe at some point—a mother. Brienne looked away.

“You want to take your clothes off?” Tarla suggested.

Brienne shook her head. “Spank – spank me through my breeches.” Just as Ser Jaime had.

“How do you want it?” Tarla asked. “I’d think you’re a bit big to fit across my knee.”

“I’ll – I’ll bend over.” She pressed her belly against the footboard of the bed, bent over it, so her arms and head were on the mattress, her arse aloft.

“With my hand?” Tarla asked.

“Yes,” Brienne said. “Please.”

“Anything you want me to say?”

 _Squire_. _Wench_. _Step, strike, parry, lunge_?

Brienne swallowed. “Just spank me.”

And then Tarla did. A stinging slap to Brienne’s left buttock that made her gasp. Then sigh. Oh, it had been _moons_. She’d forgotten just how good it felt to be spanked.

“Again,” she said.

Tarla obliged, this time smacking her on the other cheek. Again. Again. Her thighs and her arse. Brienne clutched the filthy bedsheets and moaned.

“You want me to eat your cunt after, milady?”

“Eat my …?”

“Put my mouth between your legs. Make you come with my tongue.”

Brienne felt herself blush to her boots – she had no idea such things took place! She had a sudden image of herself writhing on this dirty bed, while this woman did … what? Put her tongue inside her? Would that not break her maidenhead? She was glad her face was hidden.

“N-no. Just the spanking, thank you.”

“Yes, milady,” Tarla said, and landed another stinging smack to Brienne’s arse.

But it wasn’t the same. Still not. Tarla didn’t have the weight or power behind her slaps, she didn’t smell like Ser Jaime, and … it just wasn’t mutual. She really believed it had been mutual with Ser Jaime.

She went back a few more times, got them to tie her up, put a collar on her. They got the pillory thing slightly wrong, though and pelted her with rotten tomatoes, which, while fun, was not in the least arousing, either.

So she stopped. It was too expensive. Too seedy. Not enough.

For a time, Brienne threw herself into her role as the Evenstar, writing letters to other houses of the Stormlands. Some had remained in their seats and some in exile or hostages like she was. The letters were read by the ravenmaster, of course, and Tywin Lannister too, in case she planned any treason, but mostly, they were dull, dry missives informing people of Father’s death and asking after the health of lords she had not seen since childhood.

She paid visits to people from Tarth who lived in the capital. Got to know them, tried to inspire them, tried to give them hope they would one day be allowed to return. To rebuild. She felt dishonest, though. Empty and small.

And then, one day, on a walk through the keep, Ser Hyle proposed marriage.

It was a dingy day, full of clouds and threatening rain. Brienne wore a dull plum-coloured gown with the crest of Tarth dutifully sewn onto the breast by Dorola. Ser Hyle wore a brown leather doublet and breeches. His boots were scuffed, and she noticed his sword was a little dirty, too.

They were walking through the portcullis that separated the outer yard from the middle bailey, talking about a kitchen maid who was with child, when he suddenly blurted –

“You don’t have a father.”

Brienne blinked. “I – I … not any more.”

“You are your own father … in a way.”

She screwed up her brow. “I don’t follow?”

“I have … no one to ask for your hand but you.”

“For my hand?”

“Marriage, my Lady. If … if you will take my cloak?”

“Oh.”

It was not a surprise, not truly. Had it not been on the cards since Lord Baelish had first introduced them? But she had not been expecting it _here_ , halfway through a portcullis, or _now_ , while she was still rebuilding her life after Father’s death. After Ser Jaime’s rejection.

“Forgive me if it is not proper to ask you this way. Lord Baelish warned me I could not expect a dowry of you.”

“Oh,” said Brienne again.

Ser Hyle frowned. Clearly, this had not been the overwhelmingly positive response he was looking for.

What choice did she have, truly? Tarth needed a Lord; she needed an heir. Ser Hyle was an honourable knight with a distinguished position in the City Watch, was he not? Father, she knew, had approved of the match.

“Very well,” she said.

He looked a little deflated. But he smiled. “You will not regret your decision, my Lady.”

Probably he was right, she thought as they continued through the portcullis. Regret would be too strong a word for the long, unending compromise that would be their marriage.

And so, arrangements were made for Ser Hyle Hunt to wed Lady Brienne of Tarth in the Royal Sept, a quiet wedding with only a few select family members of Ser Hyle in attendance. Brienne, of course, had no family save for Dorola – and it was made quite clear that Father’s mistress would not be permitted inside the Sept.

Lord Baelish was to give Brienne away, a prospect he seemed quite delighted by. He also introduced her to his personal seamstress, who made her a wedding gown in pretty white silk embroidered with starbursts, crescent moons and Ser Hyle’s sigil of a bound deer. It was nice. It would have been beautiful on another woman.

Father, always hopeful of finding Brienne a match, had been sure to bring House Tarth’s wedding cloak when they had left the island. Now, Dorola washed, mended and rejuvenated the faded thing to serve as Brienne’s maiden cloak.

The night before the wedding, Brienne tried the whole ensemble on, after a pleasant enough dinner with Hyle’s cousins Ser Alyn and Lady Palina.

“Your seamstress has made it a little small,” Dorola complained as she tried to cinch the corset between Brienne's broad shoulderblades.

“She said she thought I would be losing weight before the wedding, as all maids try to,” Brienne said, looking at herself in the mirror. She looked more like a man in a gown than a proper woman.

“You will do well … if you don’t breathe during your vows,” Dorola said as she finished lacing the dress.

She turned away, and picked up the maiden cloak. She had to stand on a stool to drape it about Brienne’s neck. She stood back to admire her.

She did not look bad, Brienne thought. Not laughable, at least. The cloak made all the difference.

“Sel would be very proud to see you now,” Dorola smiled. She squeezed Brienne’s arm.

Brienne nodded.

“Just think, this time tomorrow, you will be a married woman!” Dorola turned away, to clear up her sewing things.

“Yes,” Brienne swallowed. She _would_ be married this time tomorrow. This time tomorrow she would probably be feasting with her Lord husband, drinking wine and toasting to their future happiness. Preparing herself for her bedding.

Her bedding …

Ser Hyle had a small apartment adjacent to the barracks, where they would live while he was Gate Captain. Not large, but big enough for the two of them, for Dorola to live as her lady’s maid, and for a babe if she bore one.

Tomorrow they would retire there after dinner, and she would be expected to disrobe for him, get into his bed, spread her legs and give him her maidenhead.

“Will it hurt?” she blurted. “The first time. When we –”

Dorola looked surprised, then quite sad. She took one of Brienne’s large hands in her own and sighed. “Has no one talked of this with you?”

“Not really. My Septa …”

“Oh, _that_ sour old shrew? I would not have you trust a word that came from her vicious mouth.”

“She was not always the kindest to me,” Brienne confided.

“Nor to me,” Dorola said. “I suspect there has never been a woman on Tarth she _was_ kind to.”

Brienne smiled, and squeezed Dorola’s hand. “Did it … did it hurt for _you_ the first time?”

A look of pain crossed Dorola’s face, but she shored up the sad little smile she was wearing nonetheless. “I was younger than you. _Much_ younger. But … I would say that it very much depends on the man.”

The man.

The man … It hit Brienne like a thunderbolt.

Oh, _gods …._

“I’m sorry!” she blurted. “I – I can’t –”

But then she was gone, pulling out of Dorola’s embrace and dashing for the door. Gathering her skirts as she ran barefoot through the halls. Through the gates, over the drawbridge. Across the lower bailey. Past the Lionspire, down the passageway past the stables.

He was there – in the yard. Sparring with Clarreth Butterwell, sending the squire stumbling with a beautiful riposte.

He looked up to see her as she ran towards him in her wedding gown and maiden’s cloak. His eyes widened.

“I would speak with you,” she said.

“Lady Brienne?”

“I love you.”

His eyes widened further. “You – you should not be here … you aren’t –”

“I love you.”

His eyes went to her dress. Her cloak. He backed away, _fast_ towards the pavilion.

She stared at him, breathing hard.

A couple of the squires were sniggering. Brienne didn’t care.

“You’re dismissed,” Ser Jaime told his squires. “Now!” They scrambled for their belongings as fast as they could, and ran.

Ser Jaime picked up his towel. Used it to wipe sweat from his forehead. His back to her.

“I’m sorry,”, he said, eventually. “But I … I don’t believe that to be true.”

She grabbed him. Took his face between both her hands and forced him to look at her. “It _is_ true. It _is_.”

He shook his head out of her grip, his curls catching the sunlight as they moved. “We spoke of this. We talked about it. We were _resolved_.”

He tried to walk away. Brienne blocked him – a human wall in a wedding dress and cloak. “I love you,” she said again. Her eyes on his, strong and steady.

“No,” he said. “It’s quite ridiculous – we couldn't do … _that_ every day for the rest of our lives.”

“Why not?”

Ser Jaime opened his mouth to say something. Closed it again.

Brienne held his eyes. She ran a hand down his chest, through the sweat on his tunic, over each tight, bunched muscle. She grasped the hilt of his sword, the beautiful, ornate, lion-headed pommel. Pulled it from its sheath, her eyes still locked with his.

She walked backwards, watching him. He watched her, too. Watched her take his sword to the middle of the yard.

“Drill,” he said. Almost too low for her to hear. “Squire.”

She lifted his sword. “I want you to take my maidenhead.”

“Step. Strike. Parry. Lunge.” His eyes were ablaze. “Don’t stop until I get back.”

He turned on his heel, a flash of gold and crimson and green eyes like wildfire. Brienne started to drill. Ser Jaime disappeared into the night.

Step. Strike. Parry. Lunge.

Step. Strike. Parry. Lunge.

His sword sang in her hands, the light from the nearby braziers glowing in the rippled steel. Glinting in the ruby eyes.

Step. Strike. Parry. Lunge.

Step. Strike. Parry. Lunge.

Again and again and again and again as the moon rose.

Step. Strike. Parry. Lunge.

Step. Strike. Parry. Lunge.

Above her, in the top window of the Lionspire, a figure watched her, half-swallowed by the shadows.

Step. Strike. Parry. Lunge.

Step. Strike. Parry. Lunge.

He drank wine. Went away for a while.

Brienne drilled. Ser Jaime’s sword a thrill – light in her hands, pure and true and honourable as an oath. An oath of service to him.

Then, she heard footsteps. She looked up expectantly, but it was Ser Hyle. He had a piece of parchment in his hand, written in Ser Jaime’s pretty, flowing script.

_Your betrothed is in the yard with my sword._

Ser Hyle walked around her as she drilled, gaping at her clothes, at the sword, at the sweat on her brow. She ignored him.

“What – what are you doing?” he asked at last.

She stared straight ahead. Focused on her movements, on getting them right. Perfect.

“Brienne, I don’t even –”

“I’d like you to leave, Ser,” she interrupted.

“But we’re betrothed! We’re getting married on the morrow!”

“You are not wanted here, Ser Hyle. I have much drilling to do.”

“What is this? Are you bedding the Kingslayer, is that it?”

“Does this look like a bedding?”

“I – I know not, my Lady!” He reached out and caught her wrist as she moved from _parry_ to _lunge_. Held her in place. “Please. I want you to stop.”

“No,” she said. Calm and cold.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t _want_ to.”

Ser Hyle hung his head – for a moment, Brienne thought he would leave. Instead, he yanked on the wrist he was holding, pulling her towards him.

Brienne stumbled, and her greater weight sent both of them tumbling into the dirt, a pile of sword and skirts and maidencloak. They grappled, struggling for control of the sword, him pinning her wrists and her trying to buck him off her.

She managed to twist beneath him, free one of her legs enough to bring a knee up. It caught him square in the balls. Ser Hyle yelped. Went limp and rolled off her.

Brienne staggered to her feet. Grabbed Ser Jaime’s sword in both hands. Went back to drilling.

Ser Hyle groaned in the dirt, curled into a ball.

Step. Strike. Parry. Lunge.

Step. Strike. Parry. Lunge.

He got to his feet. “Brienne …”

“Hyle. I will not be marrying you on the morrow.”

He let out a breath.

“I want you to leave,” she told him. Still swinging the sword. “Now.”

He didn’t move.

“Now!” she screamed. “Go!”

He stared at her a moment longer. His eyes were wet, his shoulders slumped. Then he turned on his heel and slunk away.

Step. Strike. Parry. Lunge.

Step. Strike. Parry. Lunge.

Again and again, hours and hours. Occasionally, Ser Jaime was at the window above. Mostly, he was not. Her arms _hurt_ , her mouth was dry. But the Evenstar was tough.

Step. Strike. Parry. Lunge.

Step. Strike. Parry. Lunge.

It started to rain as the sun came up, fat, thick, luscious drops that Brienne opened her mouth to catch as she drilled. The water refreshed her. Gave her strength. She drank it in and pissed it out again, her urine running warm down her leg as she drilled. And drilled.

Dorola came as the first bell of the city tolled, bundled in a cloak to protect herself from the rain. She was sweet and kind and smiled, reaching up to push Brienne’s wet hair out of her eyes, fetching her a bottle of water and holding it up for her to drink while she drilled. Asking her gently if she was all right.

She looked worried. Brienne reassured her. Told her to get a message to Lord Baelish so that he might cancel the wedding. Dorola looked horrified – a little scared, too. But she nodded, and she left.

Lord Petyr Baelish came shortly after, flanked by a company of goldcloaks, demanding to know why she was breaking the betrothal. He ranted about the money he had spent, the arrangements he had made, the embarrassment in front of the Lords he had invited. He demanded that she put the sword down and go to the Sept, at once. He had the goldcloaks there to ensure she did just that.

“I think the Evenstar has made her wishes quite clear, don’t you?” said a crisp, cold voice from behind her, just as the goldcloaks reached for their swords. It was Tywin Lannister, with three members of the Lionguard, their crimson cloaks billowing behind them in the wind.

“My Lord,” said Baelish between gritted teeth. He bowed. “Lady Brienne was due to wed this morning, to one of my knights, Ser Hyle Hunt.”

“I’m aware of that,” Lord Tywin said. “But I believe the betrothal was broken last night?”

Brienne blinked in surprise. How had he known?

Baelish purpled. “My Lord she –”

“There is no law that compels a maid to make marriage vows against her wishes, is there?”

“No, but –”

“No. And the Evenstar is not just _any_ maid, is she? She’s a Lord of the Stormlands, descended from Kings. Royal blood flows through those veins. I’d say she’s quite entitled to turn down the prospect of marriage to a mere _Gate Captain_.”

Lord Baelish looked like he wanted to murder someone. “Yes. My Lord.”

“Good. On your way, then.”

Baelish and the goldcloaks departed. Lord Tywin looked up at Brienne as she drilled. There was something on his face, something that looked an awful lot like admiration.

“As you were … _squire_ ,” he said, and took his leave.

Brienne went back to drilling.

Her arms had started to shake by the time Ser Jaime’s sister paid her a visit. It was afternoon when the Queen approached the yard with her gaggle of handmaids, but bade them all stand back by the stables while she circled Brienne’s drilling form.

She shook her head in that way that so reminded Brienne of Ser Jaime. Her golden curls were loose, shimmering in the sunlight, identical to his.

“It’s all true about us, you know,” she said eventually. “Or it _was_. Tastes … _change_ as you get older, as things happen. What we had as trapped children, as trapped adults … it did not work for us when we were free.”

Brienne almost faltered.

“Look at you—such dedication. Such _innocence_. I can only imagine my brother’s struggle to contain himself.”

She let out a sweet tinkle of laughter, so refined and perfectly cultured and yet so dead inside. She reached up to Brienne, having to extend her arm its full length to touch her face. She stroked a long fingernail down Brienne’s sweaty cheek.

“I admire you, Lady Brienne,” she said. “The hairpin … very clever.”

She turned away in a flash of crimson and emeralds, leaving behind a cloud of perfume that was the same one Ser Jaime wore.

Brienne continued drilling.

Her arms were soft now, her fingers cramping around the sword hilt, her shoulders burning with every movement. Sweat ran into her eyes, and she got slower, and slower, and slower.

As afternoon turned to evening, Father came to see her.

Father …

There. In front of her. Standing in the dirt of the yard.

He was as tall and strong as she remembered, yet it seemed to Brienne as though he was as ephemeral as the air. She could smell the sweet salt of the sea, hear the waves crashing onto the beaches of Tarth.

“Am I asleep?” she asked him.

Father smiled again. “Maybe.”

But she wasn’t. The muscles in her arms still screamed every time she moved them. She was just hallucinating.

“I miss you, Father.”

Father didn’t speak any more. She tried to hold him, hold his image in her mind—the clear, sparkling blue of his eyes as bright as the sky. As blue as the sea, as soft and salt as the wind. Then he was gone.

He was gone, and it was evening. The first stars of the evening were out, and the brazier was little more than embers. Brienne’s arms were so sluggish she could barely lift the sword. Pain lanced down her back. Across her shoulders. In her hips. Her feet were blistered, her hands afire. Her knees were trembling, barely able to hold her up.

Step …

She started to sing to herself, trying to stay awake.

Strike …

She imagined she was in battle, fighting for her life.

Parry …

A colossal creature of some sort, a slavering bear, towered over her.

Lunge …

She slashed at it with the sword. Ser Jaime’s sword, burning with blue fire.

Step …

She was naked.

Strike …

In chains. Ser Jaime in chains.

Parry …

Drowning in the dark, ice-blue eyes everywhere around them.

Lunge ...

In the dark … in the dark …

“Brienne …”

She jerked awake. She had been asleep on her feet. Still drilling.

Ser Jaime was there.

He was beautiful in starlight, so beautiful she thought he was a dream, like Father had been. But he reached out to her, took her hands and stilled them. He was warm. Real. She looked at him like he was something impossible. He looked at her the same way. Tenderly unfolded her fingers from the hilt of the sword.

The sword was stuck to her hands with blood, her palms blistered and abraided. Her fingers did not want to straighten. Ser Jaime brought them to his lips and kissed them.

His lips touched every cut, every blister. It hurt, but it was the most tender pain Brienne could ever remember. He slid his arms around her. Pressed another kiss to her forehead.

“Kneel,” he whispered into her ear. “Lady Brienne.”

She looked at him, her eyes huge. Did he mean –?

He nodded. She all but collapsed – both knees hit the ground in a squish of mud and wet skirts.

Ser Jaime lifted his sword, looking down at her with impossibly intense eyes. Brienne trembled before him, exhausted and in awe. His sword touched her shoulder.

“In the name of the Warrior, I charge you to be brave.”

He lifted his sword, over her head to the other shoulder.

“In the name of the Father, I charge you to be just.”

He placed his sword on the first shoulder again. A kiss and a promise.

“In the name of the Mother, I charge you to defend the innocent.”

His sword slid from her shoulder to the ground.

“Arise, Brienne of Tarth. A knight of the Seven Kingdoms.”

She tried to stand, but her knees sagged, and her legs gave way. Ser Jaime caught her with a grin, bore her to the ground, lay her across his lap and held her. He’d brought water for her, pressed the cold clay bottle to her lips, and she drank from it in needy swallows. Gazing at him. A knight. She was a knight.

He gazed at her, too. She was _his_ knight.

He helped her upstairs. Tried to carry her but failed. Wrapped both arms around her shoulders and walked each step with her. His lips pressed soft kisses on her neck as they went, on her cheek, on her jaw. His hands moved in soft circles on her shoulders and back. Her skin felt weak and loved.

His chambers were beautiful, gilded by the soft light of dozens of candles, blurred and hazy to Brienne. A fire roared in the grate. He took her to his bed, cradled her as she lay back on his pillows, gazed at her, caressed her face.

“Ser …” she whispered to him.

“Jaime,” he whispered back. “My name’s Jaime.”

Brienne fell into sleep.

She woke when Jaime undressed her, his hands caressing the fastenings on her cloak, stroking over the bodice of her wedding gown. Pulling at the laces on her corset. It was late, and quiet. Quiet everywhere.

He kissed her.

Not the way Hyle had kissed her, not those dry, chaste pecks he’d placed on her chin or cheeks. This was firm and breathy, Jaime’s open mouth on her open mouth. His tongue! It slid over her own, meltingly, viscerally, intensely wet. Was this what men and maids did when they bedded each other? They kissed like _this_?

Brienne could not get enough. The smell of Jaime – _Jaime Jaime Jaime_ \- it filled her nostrils, and she took great lungfuls of him. Held his face between her sore palms, wanted to pull him inside her aching body. _Inside her_.

They had not exchanged cloaks, nor made any promises to each other, but Brienne already knew she would lose her maidenhead this night. She would know Jaime’s most intimate touch, and he hers. She would know him.

He’d set a bath in the other room, filled with steaming water. They kissed some more, and then he helped her into it, held her hand and held her eyes with his. The water soothed her exhausted muscles, warm as his skin, as loving as his touch. Brienne lay nipple deep in it, tired and happy. He had food for her, cubes of cheese, and bread, and sweet cakes which he fed to her with sticky fingers. Caressed her lips as he brushed the crumbs away. He gave her water, and wine.

Jaime washed her slowly. His hands, those perfect hands, the hands that spanked her, fastened the hound’s collar on her, strapped her into the pillory and fed her water until her bladder burst … now they rubbed her neck, rubbed her shoulders. Soaped her skin and slipped lovingly into her hair. So gentle.

He dried her gently, too, following the route of the towel on her skin with his lips. On his knees beside her, touching every part of her, watching every movement of her body, every muscle, every hair … and every scar, as well.

“How did you do this?” he whispered, following a thick, long wound on her hip with the towel and then his finger.

“Broken glass,” she said, her voice thick. She ran her fingers through Jaime’s curls as he leaned in to flick his tongue over the scar, tasting it, feeling the texture. The sensation of his tongue on her scars was almost more intimate than she could bear.

“When?” he whispered. “Why?”

There was no judgement in his tone, no horror or revulsion at the act. He just wanted to _know_.

“A man gave me a rose,” she told him. “Told me it was all I would ever have of him.”

Jaime grunted. Kissed the scar again. “And this one?” His lips moved to a smaller cut at the top of her thigh.

“Knitting needle. Heated in a candle flame. Because the servants laughed at me in a ballgown that I loved.”

Now he moved around to a patch of reddened, uneven skin on her inner thigh. Placed an open-mouthed kiss on it, looked up at her.

“Candle wax,” she whispered softly. “Because I couldn’t help my father when he needed me.”

Jaime nodded even as he nuzzled against her damaged skin. He had seen her do that.

“And these?” His tongue roved up and down over the series of scars on the soft flesh of her inner thigh. They were red and raised. Deep and jagged. He lifted her leg and put her foot on his knee so that he might better kiss them—stroke them with his chin.

“The day we left Tarth. When your – when they burned Evenfall. I had no weapons, so I sharpened the feet of my childhood doll and cut myself while everyone slept”

Jaime’s eyes widened. The warm ghost of his gasp disturbed the hair between her legs. “We burned your home?”

Brienne sighed.

Jaime moved his mouth, a slow meander of his maddeningly soft lips from the tender flesh of her scars to the tender flesh of her cunt. Kissing. Kissing. Brienne closed her eyes.

“Oh …” she moaned. “Jaime.”

“Here …” he whispered. “Come here.”

Jaime had lain a new rug by the fire, a thick animal skin of some sort. Piled it with pillows.

He lay her down there like something precious, gazed at her as he stood to disrobe himself. He unlaced his shirt, and firelight danced on his golden skin. Slipped his breeches down his hips. He wore no smallclothes.

Brienne all but whimpered at the sight of him. The bunched muscles on his abdomen. The v-shaped line that pointed right _there_ , right at his …

“Cock ….” Brienne whispered aloud, sliding both hands between her legs to rub herself at the sight of him. Winced at her sore palms but used the tips of her fingers to alleviate that burning, burning urge.

Gods, his cock … 

It was _hard._ Brienne had never seen a hard cock before, and of course, Jaime’s was beautiful. But not at all in the way she had expected. When she had touched herself thinking of him in her chambers, she had pictured his cock as golden like the rest of him, a powerful, muscular sword that would pierce her maidenhead in one ferocious thrust. But no … Jaime’s cock was delicate and pretty, and as pink as a kitten’s nose! A delighted giggle burst out of her throat.

He laughed too, wrapping a hand around his manhood and played with it while watching her. While he knelt between her legs.

His long curls tumbled over his shoulder as he bent his head. Brienne moved her hands away, and he kissed her … _there_ , eyes closed and open-mouthed, tasting and breathing and letting out the softest groan. He wrapped both arms about her arse to hold her close to his face. It felt like squeezing, like hugging, right where she needed it … his tongue a sweet, wet, flickering counterpoint.

Gods – _gods_! He knew her secret spot. He slowly suckled on it, played with it, lapped at it, drove her mind to near madness with the sweet wet scrape of his tongue against it. He took his time, there was no urgency, but slowly, slowly, he built her up … and up … and _up_ …

When her pleasure came, it felt like breaking apart.

Brienne writhed on the pillows, crying her joy to the silent tower, to the sleeping city. She was … oh, gods, she felt _beautiful_.

Jaime kissed all over her shattered, sensitive body. A trail of lips and tongue and breath and a tumble of golden curls.

She watched him, sleepy and smiling.

“Who did you squire for?” she whispered as he kissed her legs. “Who knighted you?”

His mouth slipped upward, over her hip, mapping the stout curve of it with his fingers before following with his lips.

“What was your mother’s name? Who was the first man you fought?”

He kissed around, over her belly, a flash of tongue in her bellybutton. Up to her breastbone.

“Who was the first maid you kissed? Are you better with the lance, or the morningstar?”

His tongue and teeth on each of her nipples in turn, his wicked grin as he devoured her tiny breasts.

“Why did you kill the King?”

He lifted his eyes to her eyes—bit his lip. He looked serious now – serious and vulnerable both. His hands caught her hands, fingers interlacing with hers.

“Aerys had caches of wildfire hidden beneath the city,” he whispered. His forehead came to rest against hers, his eyes closed. “I killed him to stop him from burning every man, woman and child in King’s Landing.”

Her eyes blew wide. Jaime kissed her – a long, slow, intense kiss that Brienne felt right to her toes.

“I’ve never told anyone that before,” he whispered.

“No one?”

“Just you.”

She kissed him again, all her soul in it. His hips ground against hers, his cock hard between their bellies. She wrapped her legs around him, toes slowly stroking the inside of his calves.

He slid down as he nibbled at the soft skin of her neck. His cock was there, between her legs, right _there._ Sliding over her full, wet, ready … Jaime hummed, deep in his throat.

“I – I will wed you,” he whispered. “I would not dishonour you and then –”

Brienne shushed him. She knew.

He was _there_ – right there, all she had to do was glide a sore palm down his back, cup his arse and move with him. He pressed against her, gentle but firm. Brienne sucked in a breath, grit her teeth and braced herself for the pain her Septa had always promised. It did not scare her – she could take pain from Jaime.

But she just felt _sliding_ , felt thick and full and … fulfilled. She felt the hair above his manhood touch her, and his balls tickled soft against her arse. Jaime grinned at her. Inside her. One flesh.

They kissed, endlessly, moving together, a gentle rocking that built and built and built until they were both consumed by it. Brienne was lost. She was just her skin, sliding slick against his skin, burning hot in the licking heat of the fire. She was just her tongue, plunging into the sweetness of Jaime’s mouth. She was her sex, and she felt deep and wet and soft and _his_.

Jaime’s. _Jaime’s._

Gods, sex felt nothing like she thought it would. She had always thought the pleasure would come from the joining itself, the feeling of a cock in her cunt. She hadn’t reckoned on the trails of fire his caressing hands left on her thighs, the heaving thrill of his chest hair against her nipples. She had known nothing of tongues against tongues, or the intensity of having her lover’s breath on her face. Tasting the inside of his mouth. Knowing him … knowing the most private and intimate things about him … How he trusted her as she trusted him.

She held Jaime tight, legs and arms about him, stroked him everywhere with her sore, torn hands that were sore and torn for _him_. Jaime moaned and trembled, his beautiful, artful rippling thrusts beginning to stutter, become frantic.

Then he pulled himself from her body with a hoarse cry and his seed flooded across Brienne’s belly, warm and white. Brienne gasped. Jaime clutched her.

He sagged, panting and weak, by her side on the rug. His seed beaded and rolled down the slope of her belly.

“Oh,” she said. Touched it delicately with her fingers.

He grinned, still panting heavily, and caught her wrist, bringing her fingers to her mouth.

“Taste,” he whispered.

She lifted her head and sucked it off her fingers, rolling the flavour around her mouth. It was … curious. Not unpleasant, bitter and rich. Jaime bit his lip as he watched. He put his own fingers into the puddle, then, drew lazy patterns on her belly with his own seed.

“I will wed you,” he said again, softly. “I – I just thought you … you’re young. You may want to enjoy a few years of knighthood before I get a babe on you.”

A babe …

Brienne drew Jaime to her and kissed him again.

* * *

Wed they did, less than a moon from that night. They said their vows in the splendour and resplendence of the Sept of Baelor, too.

Lord Tywin had insisted it was the only fitting place for the heir of Lannister and the Evenstar to be joined. He had smiled smugly when they had told them of their wishes, and agreed immediately, shocking Jaime to his core.

Like Tyrion had warned him … Jaime had never seen it coming.

A moon after that, they sailed for Tarth, with Dorola, Father’s bones, and the finest building crew that Lannister gold could buy. The next Evenstar, after all, would be a Lannister, and he would need the most lavish Evenfall Hall that had ever been.

To oversee the construction, Ser Jaime and Ser Brienne lived in a manse overlooking the Sapphire Sea, where they could govern the island and train their squires and where, almost every day, Ser Brienne found a new and exciting way to displease Ser Jaime.

And almost every day, Ser Jaime took his pleasure in correcting Ser Brienne’s transgressions. A good, hard spanking in their terraced garden that overlooked the bay. A little acting as Ser Jaime’s chair while he ate his evening meal. And … if she was especially bad, a little trip on horseback deep into the forest where he would truss her to a tree and fuck her until her arse bled from chafing on the bark.

Yet every day, they were Lord and Lady. Every day they ruled their island. Helped the smallfolk, kept the peace.

Every day, they were Brienne and Jaime, and they knew and loved each other well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who has read and commented on this story, I hope you all liked the last chapter.
> 
> I'll leave some more extensive notes once anon comes off, but just wanted to say a big thanks to tarthiana for the amazing prompt. I had so much fun writing it!


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